BORLASE  &  SON 


By  the  same  Autbtr 

THE  MANDATE 
A  GUARDIAN   OF  THE  POOR 


BORLASE   &   SON 

A   NOVEL 


BY 
T.    BARON    RUSSELL 


JOHN  LANE 

THE  BODLEY  HEAD 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

MCMIII 


Copyright,  1903,  John  Lane 


First  Edition,  October, 


J.J.  Little  ft  Co.,  New  York.  U.S.A. 


2138099 


AUTHOR'S    NOTE 

IN  a  book  entitled  "  A  Guardian  of  the  Poor  " 
and  published  in  1897  at  the  sign  of  The  Bodley 
Head  by  Mr.  John  Lane,  several  of  the  person- 
ages here  re-introduced  to  the  public  made  their 
first  appearance  and  had  their  earlier  adventures 
(or  rather,  annals)  set  down.  There  is,  how- 
ever, no  connection  between  the  two  volumes. 
"  Borlase  &  Son  "  is  in  no  sense  a  sequel  to  "  A 
Guardian  of  the  Poor,"  and  those  who  are  kind 
enough  to  understand  the  present  work  at  all, 
will  understand  it  just  as  well  without  as  with  a 
reference  to  the  earlier  volume. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say — and  the  author 
would  not  venture  to  say  it,  had  not  some  read- 
ers of  "  A  Guardian  of  the  Poor  "  been  good 
enough  to  identify  to  him,  in  correspondence, 
the  supposed  originals  of  Mr.  Borlase  and  of 
Borlase  &  Company's  emporium — that  the  per- 
sonages represented  in  both  books  are  purely 
fictitious.  The  conditions  of  life  portrayed  are, 
on  the  other  hand,  absolutely  veracious;  but  no 
individual  and  no  single  establishment  have 
been,  even  remotely,  aimed  at.  If  some  crying 
evils  have  been  pretty  plainly  hinted  at,  it  is 
quite  impersonally,  and  the  author  is  fully  aware 


viii  AUTHOR'S   NOTE 

of  the  many  instances  in  which  these  evils  are, 
and  always  have  been,  absent  from  establish- 
ments otherwise  of  the  same  class  as  the  one  de- 
scribed in  the  earlier  part  of  this  book  and  in  "  A 
Guardian  of  the  Poor."  Had  such  conditions 
been  universal,  it  would  hardly  have  been  inter- 
esting to  write  about  them;  the  inculcation  of 
social,  and  still  less  of  business,  morality  being 
no  part  of  a  novelist's  function. 

HAMPTON-ON-THAMES 
May,  1903 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.    MR.    BORLASE          .            .           .           .  .  .            I 

II.    THE   CUSTOMS   OF   TRADE         .           •  .  .         l6 

HI.    ERRORS  AND  OMISSIONS            .           .  .  .         38 

IV.    A   CHRISTMAS   DINNER    .                        .  .  .56 

v.  NEW  YEAR'S  EVE          .        .        .  •  *      7 1 

VI.    A   YOUNG   MAN   FROM   OXFORD           .  .  .         83 

Vn.    BUSINESS   DEVELOPMENTS          .           .       .  .  .         95 

VIII.     "OUR  ANNUAL  SALE"   .....      IO7 

IX.     AFLOAT           .             .            .            .            .  .  .122 

x.   "DIGGINGS"        .        .,      .        .  .  .    132 

XI.    THE    BACK   PAGE   OF   THE  NEWSPAPER  .  .140 

XII.    THE   WICKSTEDS   AT   HOME      .           i  .  .      151 

XIII.  BETTER,   ALL   ROUND      .                        .  .  •      163 

XIV.  EMPLOYMENT          .            .            .           .  .  »      175 
XV.    BROTHER   AND   SISTER   .            .  «  -,      185 

XVI.    ENTER   SMITH   &   PERKS             .            .  .  .192 

XVTI.    NEW   ACQUAINTANCES 206 

XVm.     NEW   FRIENDS         .            .           .           .  .  .217 

XDC.    NEW   INFLUENCES 231 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PACK 

XX.  NEW  WORK 246 

xxi.  STANTON'S  RETURN 261 

XXII.  BORLASE  &   SON 289 

XXIII.  THICKER   THAN   WATER  .  .  .  .291 

XXIV.  A    MAN 298 


BORLASE  &  SON 


BORLASE    &    SON 


CHAPTER  I 

MR.    BORLASE 

FROM  a  disadvantageous  standpoint  across  the 
river,  South  London  is  probably  considered  as 
a  single  neighbourhood.  Over  here,  we  know 
better.  Clapham,  for  a  single  example,  would 
never  thank  you  to  confound  its  utmost  Grove 
(we  are  fonder  of  groves  than  of  streets) 
with  neighbouring  Battersea.  It  would  shudder 
at  hearing  itself  compared,  even  favourably, 
with  Wandsworth.  I  have  been  told — so  nicely 
rancorous  are  our  topographical  distinctions — 
that  the  postal  boundary  which  follows  the  devi- 
ous course  of  Camberwell  New-road  has  a  well- 
marked  economic  effect  on  the  streets  of  either 
side,  so  that  houses  which  just  manage  to  write 
themselves  "  S.  W."  fetch  some  pounds  more  a 
year  than  their  fellows  on  the  other  side  of  the 
scientific  frontier,  which  are  frankly  in  the 
South-Eastern  District.  Neighbouring  dis- 
tricts blend  curiously,  East  Dulwich  merging 
reluctantly  into  Peckham,  and  Peckham  in  its 
turn  resisting  to  the  last  the  encroachments  of 
Camberwell,  somewhere  near  the  Hall  where  the 
Vestry,  a  far-reaching  and  rather  benevolent 


2  BORLASE   &   SON 

power,  makes  minor  laws  for  all  of  us.  Our 
water,  though  we  try  to  forget  the  fact,  is  even 
supplied  from  Lambeth. 

There  is  hereabout  a  well-defined  region,  hav- 
ing boundaries  other  than  those  of  suburb  and 
suburb  set  up  by  the  local  topographers.  It  is 
not  Camberwell,  for  it  does  not  begin  until  long 
past  where  the  Atlas  omnibuses  turn  round  and 
go  back  toward  Westminster.  It  is  not  Peck- 
ham,  for  Peckham  extends  far  out  to  the  right 
as  you  go  southward,  and  in  places  begins 
absurdly  to  call  itself  East  Dulwich.  After  the 
Walworth  Road  has  turned  sharply,  rounding 
Camberwell  Green,  and  the  colony  of  trades- 
men and  commercial  travellers  who  go  to  town 
by  tramway-car  has  been  entered,  one  reaches 
the  lurking  places  of  a  community  which  looks 
to  Rye  Lane  for  its  shopping.  These  were  the 
houses  of  the  constituents  of  Borlase  &  Com- 
pany, in  its  day  the  most  characteristic  drapery 
shop  of  South  Camberwell.  Mr.  Borlase  (for 
the  "  Company  "  was  purely  fictitious)  used  to 
call  it  a  Drapery  Emporium,  a  very  deep,  very 
narrow  shop,  served  by  some  fifty  young  men 
and  "  young  ladies."  All  drapers'  girls  are  called 
young  ladies,  irrespective  of  age.  Borlase's 
long  had  the  art  to  divine  the  Suburb's  exact  re- 
quirements. Its  ribbons  had  all  the  gloss  and 
some  of  the  substance  (a  little  differently  formed) 
of  the  most  seemly  West  End  products.  Its 
calicoes,  if  you  did  not  shake  them  too  vigor- 
ously, were  as  heavy  as  any  in  Town.  Hats 
bought  at  this  establishment  and  "  trimmed  " 


BORLASE   &   SON  3 

(an  announcement  in  the  window  used  to  prom- 
ise), "  free  of  charge,"  had  sometimes  the  very 
shape  and  appearance  of  last  season's  London 
styles;  these  were  felt  to  be  almost  wickedly 
modern.  To  go  farther  would  have  stirred  our 
prejudice;  we  like  to  be  stylish  here,  but  we 
scorn  "  the  extreme  "  of  fashion.  Shoddy  (which 
is  old  cloth,  torn  up  in  a  machine  and  re-spun) 
furnished  us  with  dress  fabrics  absolutely  indis- 
tinguishable through  Borlase's  plate-glass  win- 
dows from  the  vicunas  and  cashmeres  of  the 
wicked  West. 

Thus  Borlase  and  Company  throve  as  was 
most  proper.  Mr.  Borlase,  once  a  clerk  "  in  the 
wholesale,"  then  a  struggling  shop-keeper  be- 
hind his  own  counter,  aided  by  his  sallow,  skinny 
and  admiring  wife,  became  a  large  employer  of 
labour  and  a  power  in  the  land.  He  was  Church- 
warden, Vestryman,  Guardian  of  the  Poor,  a 
strenuous  and  ardent  withstander  of  the  County 
Council's  innovations,  and  the  recipient  of  the 
Testimonial  which  hung,  gilt-framed,  in  his 
drawing-room,  praising  his  benevolent  public 
spirit. 

A  stout,  small  man,  showing  in  later  life  some 
signs  that  the  privations  of  his  youth  had  been 
avenged  in  the  days  of  prosperity,  he  lived  with, 
as  he  lived  upon,  his  business,  and  saved  money. 
His  marriage  had  been  childless,  but  one  of  the 
well-known  benevolences  alluded  to  in  the  Tes- 
timonial, had  been  the  adoption  of  an  orphan 
from  the  House  of  the  Poor  whom  he  helped 
officially  to  guard.  He  had  no  kinsmen  with 


4  BORLASE   &   SON 

whom  he  was  on  any  terms,  and  recognising 
sagaciously  that  his  money  must,  some  day,  be 
left  behind,  he  chose  rather  to  provide  himself 
with  an  interest  in  its  disposal,  than  desert  it,  to 
the  advantage  of  strangers  or  unloved  relatives. 
Stanton  Borlase  the  boy  was  called,  having  re- 
ceived his  mother's  patronymic  as  a  baptismal 
name  (for  Mr.  Borlase,  as  became  a  Warden  of 
the  Church,  was  scrupulous  in  keeping  that 
Church's  ordinances),  and  as  he  grew  there  was 
a  new  satisfaction  in  the  careful  economies  of  the 
establishment.  If  the  young  men  and  young 
ladies  of  the  shop  fared  scantily ;  if  match-board- 
ing and  restricted  air-space  multiplied  unwhole- 
some bedrooms,  and  so  saved  rent,  Stanton, 
some  day,  would  be  the  richer.  Mrs.  Borlase, 
who  adored  the  boy  with  a  childless  woman's 
inevitable  yearning,  supplemented  her  husband's 
endeavours  until  the  day  when  her  death  left  him 
widowed,  with  a  boy  of  fifteen  completing  what 
was  called  in  his  school  prospectus  a  sound  com- 
mercial education.  He  had  been  born  a  puny, 
bloodless  creature :  one  rather  wondered  why  he 
was  born  at  all,  and  why  encouraged  to  take  the 
very  considerable  trouble  of  living.  However, 
when  he  was  old  enough  to  be  sent  out  of  the 
Suburb  (there  is  no  blinking  the  fact  that  the 
Suburb  is  depressing),  country  air  did  wonders 
with  him,  and  he  shook  off  some  part  of  his  native 
debility.  The  study  was  always  kinder  to  him 
than  the  cricket  field,  and  he  naturally  liked  it 
better,  being  also  encouraged  in  this  peculiarity 
by  his  guardian.  Mr.  Borlase  had  never  played 


BORLASE   &   SON  5 

any  games  himself  and  did  not  see  the  use  of 
them  to  other  people — an  attitude  not  uncom- 
mon among  the  self-made. 

For  three  years  after  Mrs.  Borlase's  sudden 
death,  Stanton  was  kept  from  home.  For  his 
vacations,  Mr.  Borlase  conducted  him,  with 
liberal  supplies  of  good  advice,  to  one  seaside 
resort  or  another,  and  put  him  in  charge  of 
trustworthy  people,  above  suspicion  of  encour- 
aging youthful  levity.  The  lad  was  over  eigh- 
teen years  old,  weedy  and  narrow  chested,  but 
by  way  of  being  clever  (and  from  the  unhidden 
circumstances  of  his  birth  and  destiny  still  more 
by  way  of  being  tactful)  when,  on  a  winter  morn- 
ing, he  was  brought  by  a  cab,  with  his  luggage, 
to  the  side  dioor  of  the  shop.  Free  at  last  of 
school,  he  had  been  prepared  by  letter  to  make 
an  immediate  entry  into  the  actual  business  life 
for  which  his  commercial  colleges  were  sup- 
posed to  have  fitted  him. 

Mr.  Borlase,  who  exercised  in  his  proper  per- 
son the  responsible  duties  of  shopwalker,  had 
seen  him  drive  up  in  the  drizzling  rain,  but  had 
not  thought  fit  to  leave  the  shop;  so  that  it 
was  in  the  full  glare  of  publicity  that  they  met 
and  shook  hands,  not  without  a  certain  cordial- 
ity. The  draper  was,  in  his  own  way,  attached 
to  the  boy.  Little  as  he  had  been  accustomed 
to  regard  Mrs.  Borlase's  opinions  and  tastes,  he 
would  have  needed  to  be  actually  prejudiced 
against  the  child — which  he  certainly  wasn't — 
in  order  not  to  gather  some  of  her  tenderness  for 
the  little  waif.  All  the  love,  nearly,  that  the 


6  BORLASE   &   SON 

mother  he  had  lost  could  have  lavished  upon 
him,  Stanton  had  received  from  the  mother  he 
had  found.  His  origin  was  no  secret  from  him ; 
but  he  had  been  brought  up  to  call  Mrs.  Bor- 
lase  "  Mother."  Her  husband  he  occasionally 
called  "  Father  "  but  more  often  merely  "  Sir," 
which  Mr.  Borlase,  from  his  almost  stealthy  ex- 
cursions into  fiction,  had  been  led  to  regard  as 
the  more  aristocratic  usage.  Other  boys  in  the 
Suburb  did  not  call  their  fathers  "Sir,"  and  when 
Stanton  found  it  the  most  natural  form  of  ad- 
dress, the  draper  was  secretly  gratified.  He  had 
a  sort  of  pride  in  his  boy;  a  sentiment  which 
took  the  place  of,  or  perhaps  covered,  the 
warmer  one  of  affection.  Certainly  he  meant  to 
do  well  by  him,  and  liked  to  have  every  one 
know  it,  just  as  he  liked,  now  that  Stanton,  well- 
dressed,  brisk,  and  not  ill-looking,  was  home 
again,  to  have  him  walk  confidently  down  the 
shop  and  shake  hands,  before  the  assistants  and 
customers. 

"  Well !  So  you're  home  from  College ;  eh !  " 
he  said,  with  a  rapid  glance  at  his  hearers  which 
embraced  the  effect  of  this  expression.  "  And  all 
right,  by  your  looks?  " 

"  Yes,  thank  you,  sir:  I'm  very  fit,"  said  the 
lad.  "  I  had  your  letter  yesterday,  and  of  course 
I  expect  to  do  whatever  you  wish.  Dr.  Hum- 
phrey told  me  in  the  evening  that  you  had  given 
notice  for  me  last  half,  which  I  didn't  know  be- 
fore. He  sent  his  compliments  to  you,  sir,  and 
told  me  I  might  say  that  he  thinks  you  will  be 
gratified  with  his  report  next  week." 


BORLASE   &   SON  7 

"  Well,  well :  that's  very  nice,  that's  very 
nice,"  said  Mr.  Borlase :  "  and  I've  got  a  place 
for  you  in  my  eye,  here,  for  a  little  time  at  all 
events.  When  would  you  like  to  begin?  " 

"  This  minute  if  you  wish,  sir :  I  am  ready 
whenever  you  say  so."  Stanton  had  anticipated 
the  question  and  prepared  the  reply  which  he 
thought  would  best  please  his  guardian. 

"  Very  well  said,"  replied  the  draper,  looking 
round  the  shop  again.  "  That's  the  spirit  I 
should  wish  a  son  of  mine — an  adopted  son,  that 
is — to  show.  The  sooner  the  better,  eh  ?  Well, 
we  won't  be  in  a  hurry.  You  can  take  a  look 
round,  and  then  go  up  to  get  your  things  un- 
packed. We'll  have  a  chat  at  lunch  time."  So 
saying,  he  turned  to  speak  to  a  customer. 
"Stockings,  ma'am?  On  the  right,  if  you 
please.  Miss  Miller — ?  stockings.  Good  morn- 
ing, Mrs.  Wilson:  pleased  to  see  you  about 
again :  hope  you're  better "  (to  another  cus- 
tomer). "Have  you  everything  you  require? 
Yes?  Thank  you  very  much.  My  son?  Yes, 
ma'am — at  least  my  adopted  son;  just  home 
from  college.  Coming  into  the  business?  Yes, 
ma'am ;  to  begin  at  the  bottom  rung  of  the  lad- 
der, the  same  as  I  had  to  do  myself ;  good  morn- 
ing, thank  you," — and  so  forth,  to  various  callers. 

The  shop  around  which  Stanton  Borlase  was 
meanwhile  taking  a  look,  was  a  large  one,  but 
not  roomy  for  the  amount  of  business  which  it 
accommodated.  The  counters  ran  endways  to 
the  street,  and  no  contrivance  was  absent  by 
which  the  space  at  disposal  could  be  made  the 


8  BORLASE   &   SON 

most  of;  just  as,  by  judicious  arrangement,  the 
labour  of  the  young  men  and  young  "  ladies  " 
was  carefully  utilised  to  the  utmost,  that 
none  might  idle  unreproved.  Just  now  the  place 
was  not  very  full  of  customers,  though  more 
people  were  in  the  shop  than  would  normally 
have  been  there  on  a  wet  morning ;  for  Christ- 
mas was  at  hand  and  trade  already  waking  up  in 
complimentary  anticipation  of  that  season.  The 
damp  umbrellas  of  the  visitors  gave  the  air  a 
sticky  humidness:  the  plate-glass  doors,  con- 
stantly being  left  open,  to  be  closed  after  a  short 
interval  by  an  exasperated  assistant,  had  a  mist 
on  them:  and  the  goods  displayed  in  the  show 
windows  had  had  to  be  moved  back  a  little,  early 
in  the  day,  to  avoid  injury  by  condensed  moist- 
ure rolling  down  inside  the  glass.  Every  avail- 
able space  displayed  cheap  finery  and  such 
things  as  ribbons,  cards  of  celluloid  and  vegeta- 
ble-ivory buttons,  the  vast  class  of  miscellaneous 
ware  known  as  "  fancy  goods  "  or  "  novelties  " 
and  supposed  to  be  saleable  at  festive  seasons. 
In  one  corner,  greatly  in  the  way  of  the  neigh- 
bouring assistants,  was  a  new,  full-sized  figure, 
dressed  in  a  black  skirt  of  economical  silk  and 
a  brilliantly  coloured  blouse.  Its  scandalously 
golden  hair,  its  black,  well-pencilled  eyebrows, 
the  artifice  of  its  too  rosy  cheeks,  and  its  very 
scarlet  lips,  gave  it  an  air  of  grotesque  immor- 
ality; but  the  Suburb  admires  in  art  what  it 
would  rightly  condemn  in  life.  From  the  gas 
brackets  over  the  counters,  shaped  like  inverted 
Ts,  hung  machine-lace  collarettes,  neck-and- 


BORLASE   &   SON  9 

wrist-pieces  of  disguised  rabbit  skin,  and  similar 
articles  of  taste  and  fashion.  The  assistants  who 
were  not  actually  "  serving,"  were  all  busily  em- 
ployed in  sorting  out  stock,  re-arranging  boxes 
of  hat-trimmings,  putting  straight  various  rolls 
of  cloth  or  calico  that  had  been  disturbed  for  the 
choice  of  purchasers,  and  otherwise  repairing 
the  hourly  disarrangement  of  affairs  which  must 
in  any  event  be  put  right  before  any  one  could 
leave  the  shop  at  bed-time.  Near  the  door,  a 
servant-girl  was  demanding  "  half  a  yard  of  nar- 
row, black  elawstic,"  and  between  whiles  shak- 
ing a  querulous  child  that  insisted  on  climbing 
up  to  sit  on  a  counter-chair,  and  observe  the 
process  of  measuring  the  elastic  by  a  brass  rule 
let  into  the  scratched  and  dull  mahogany.  A  lit- 
tle farther  on,  a  sallow  woman  with  a  hacking 
cough  was  asking  for  a  yard  and  an  eighth  of 
brown  fur  trimming,  and  debating  with  an  as- 
sistant the  sufficiency  of  this  quantity  to  make  a 
collar  and  a  pair  of  cuffs  to  go  on  a  green  cloth 
jacket.  "  Why  not  'ave  one  of  our  sable  collar- 
ettes, one  and  eleven-three,  miss?"  proposed 
the  shop-girl.  "  Oh,  I  don't  want  nothink  so  ex- 
pensive as  that "  was  the  critical  reply.  The  talk 
across  all  the  counters  was  of  this  character. 

Presently  Stanton  went  upstairs,  to  be  re- 
ceived by  Mrs.  Dobson,  the  nervous,  hatchet- 
faced  housekeeper,  said  by  venomous  assistants 
to  be  closer-fisted  than  even  Borlase  himself. 
She  was  a  life-long  institution,  having  been  in 
the  place  more  than  twenty  years.  The  first 
floor  was  Mr.  Borlase's  domestic  haven,  and  con- 


io  BORLASE   &   SON 

tained,  in  addition  to  Mr.  Borlase's  private  apart- 
ments, the  assistants'  sitting-room :  higher  up, 
in  a  series  of  infinitesimal  hutches,  known  rather 
sanguinely  as  bed-rooms,  the  "  young  ladies  " 
slept,  two  in  a  hutch.  The  young  men  were 
lodged  elsewhere,  a  grubby  house  in  Denmark 
Street  being  devoted  to  their  slumbers. 

The  bed-room  to  which  Stanton  ascended, 
with  Mrs.  Dobson  at  his  elbow,  adjoined  his 
guardian's.  The  place  even  now  had  not  lost 
for  him  the  forlorn  vacancy  that  had  stilled  and 
ensombred  it  during  the  few  days  of  his  home- 
staying,  when  he  had  been  suddenly  called  to  the 
funeral  of  his  foster-mother — too  late  to  see  any- 
thing but  her  empty  body.  His  own  austere 
apartment  seemed  dark  yet  with  the  unforgotten 
absence  of  her  kind  hand.  There  remained  in  it 
much  that  was  eloquent  of  her — the  stiff  muslin 
drapery,  over  blue,  glazed  calico,  of  the  dress- 
ing-table, a  "  tidy  "  in  pierced  cardboard  on  the 
wall,  with  "  S.  B."  and  a  border  of  pink  silk 
needlework  upon  it.  In  a  drawer  presently 
opened,  a  white  brush  and  comb  case  which  in 
her  day  he  had  always  found  on  his  table,  filled 
his  eyes  with  lonely,  reminiscent  water.  The 
very  bed  had  not  yet  been  "  made  "  but  lay, 
bolsterless,  with  a  coverlet,  inside  out,  stretched 
over  head  and  foot  rails. 

"  I'll  get  your  towels,  sir,"  Mrs.  Dobson  said, 
as  she  cast  an  eye  round  the  apartment.  "  Do 
you  want  any  hot  water?  " 

"  No,  thanks,"  Stanton  replied,  going  over  to 
the  washstand  and  lifting  the  empty  ewer;  "  but 


BORLASE   &   SON  11 

I  should  like  some  cold."  He  had  not  afore- 
time waited  for  such  things. 

"  I'll  get  you  some,"  Mrs.  Dobson  replied. 
With  an  air  of  granting  a  favour  she  took  away 
the  jug;  it  was  while  she  was  on  this  errand  that 
he  came  upon  the  drawer  and  the  brush  and 
comb  case.  There  are  few  of  us  who  have  not 
been  saddened,  at  some  moment,  by  this  im- 
manent and  voiceless  lack  of  a  loved,  wonted 
presence.  Somehow  the  very  air  seemed  to  have 
grown  colder  and  more  cheerless  since  he  left 
the  shop  a  few  minutes  ago.  He  went  to  the 
open  window  and  closed  it.  Mrs.  Dobson  came 
and  presently  left  him  alone  with  his  cold  water. 
It  would  have  been  more  comfortable,  he  now 
reflected,  to  have  accepted  her  offer  of  hot. 

One  o'clock  found  Mr.  Borlase  and  Stanton 
facing  each  other  across  a  tureen  of  soup,  a 
steak  and  a  bottle  of  brown  sherry,  Mr.  Bor- 
lase's  favourite  beverage.  Stanton  took  water, 
sherry  disagreeing  with  him.  A  good  apple  tart 
followed,  with  Stilton  and  biscuits  to  wind  up 
with;  after  which  Mr.  Borlase,  lighting  a  cigar, 
led  the  way  to  the  drawing-room  of  atrocious 
splendour,  decorated  with  his  own  portrait  in 
oils,  a  work  of  testimonial  art  modestly  alluded 
to  as  "  the  accompanying  "  in  the  illuminated 
address  which  hung  near  it,  and  bore  witness  to 
the  greatness  of  its  original. 

"Well,  young  man !  And  now  for  a  talk,"  said 
the  draper.  "  The  sooner  the  better,  as  you  said 
just  now,  though  there's  no  occasion  to  rush 
things.  Do  you  smoke  yet  ?  Don't  own  to  it,  I 
suppose,  eh?  " 


12  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  A  cigarette  sometimes,  sir,  if  you  don't  see 
any  harm  in  it,"  Staton  admitted,  blushing  a 
little. 

"H'm!  better  without  it;  but  boys  all  seem 
to  think  themselves  men,  nowadays,"  said  Mr. 
Borlase  not  unkindly.  "  Well,  out  with  your 
cigarettes,  then,  and  let's  talk  and  get  it  over. 
I'll  be  bound  to  say  you've  got  them  about  you." 
Thus  permitted,  Stanton,  still  a  little  red  in  the 
face  (his  smoking  having  been  hitherto  surrepti- 
tious), brought  out  a  paper  packet  of  cigarettes, 
and  lit  one.  His  patron  went  on  talking. 

"  You  know  the  shop  a  bit,"  he  said.  "  Seen 
something  of  it  all  your  life,  though  I've  thought 
proper  to  keep  you  away  lately,  until  the  time 
came  for  putting  you  inside  it.  It's  a  big  busi- 
ness, Stanton;  none  better  in  the  Suburb, 
though  I  say  so.  I  want  you  to  know  it,  and  be 
proud  of  it.  It's  brought  you  up  and  kept  you — 
lucky  for  you,  too.  You'd  have  been  bad  enough 
off  if  I  hadn't  taken  you  over.  I've  treated  you 
as  my  own  son:  I  mean  to  go  on  treating  you 
the  same,  if  you  show  yourself  worth  it.  If  not — 
well,  back  where  you  came  from;  you  know  that, 
too." 

"  You  have  always  told  me  so,  sir ;  and  I  have 
tried  to  remember  it." 

"  You  have  remembered  it,  and  well  enough, 
too,  for  that  matter,  up  to  now,"  said  the  draper, 
eyeing  the  tip  of  his  cigar,  and  stretching  his  feet 
to  the  fender — for  the  day  was  cold  enough  to 
make  the  fire  pleasant.  "  Go  on  as  you've  be- 
gun," he  continued  with  comfortable  good 


13 

humour,  "  and  you  get  what  Pd  have  given  my 
eyes  to  have  at  your  age :  that  is,  a  good  berth  to 
step  into,  and  prospects.  In  my  day  I  had  no 
prospects:  I  had  to  make  my  own.  Yours  are 
ready  made  for  you,  but  I  expect  you  to  show 
yourself  deserving  of  'em,  and  meantime,  you're 
to  begin  as  I  began — down  at  the  foot.  Are  you 
ready  to  sweep  the  shop  out  at  six  o'clock  to- 
morrow morning?  " 

Stanton  hesitated  a  moment,  his  guardian  eye- 
ing him  keenly, sidelong.  "I  didn't  exactly . . . ." 
the  boy  began;  then  he  checked  himself,  his 
mere  dependency — never  long  lost  sight  of  when 
he  was  at  home — recalled  with  new  force.  "  Yes, 
sir,"  he  said  at  length.  "  Whatever  you  set  me 
to." 

"  That's  right,  that's  right,"  said  Mr.  Borlase 
approvingly.  "  That's  the  spirit,  and  I  don't 
know  but  that  it  would  be  best  for  you  if  I  took 
you  at  your  word.  But,  bearing  my  name,  I 
don't  choose  that  you  should  be  put  to  that ;  not 
here,  at  all  events.  Besides,  I  don't  mean  to 
keep  you  in  the  shop  as  a  permanent  thing. 
I'll  make  a  place  for  you  for  a  time;  after  that 
I've  other  plans.  For  the  present. ..  .You've 
been  taught  book-keeping,  I  suppose,  by  the 
way?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Think  you  know  it  all,  I  suppose— eh?  " 
"  I  took  the  head  of  my  class,  sir." 
"  H'm !  pretty  book-keeping  it  is,  I  expect. 
However,  that's  what  you  are  to  do.     Wick- 
sted's  the  book-keeper  at   present:   he's  been 


14  BORLASE   &   SON 

with  me  a  good  while — earns  good  money.  It's 
him  paints  them  fancy  show-cards,  you  know — 
you  noticed  'em  ?  "  There  was  a  touch  of  proud 
anxiety  in  Mr.  Borlase's  question. 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Well,  you'll  sit  beside  him,  and  do  what  he 
tells  you.  I  shall  tell  him  what  to  tell  you.  You 
ain't  supposed  to  be  here  to  learn :  you're  here 
to  help,  and  to  earn  your  pay.  You'll  draw  ten 
shillings  a  week;  not  that  you'll  be  worth  it,  I 
expect,  yet  awhile,  but  it  gives  you  a  position. 
When  you're  worth  more,  you'll  earn  more. 
Wicksted  gets  his  two  pounds  fifteen;  so  you 
see  there's  prospects  already.  We  pay  our  peo- 
ple well,  you  know,"  Mr.  Borlase  added  reflec- 
tively. He  did  not  add  that  Wicksted,  who  was 
married,  "  lived  out,"  thus  saving  his  employer 
the  cost  of  board  and  lodging.  Probably  the 
fact  was  in  Mr.  Borlase's  mind,  however,  for  he 
added :  "  About  your  grub.  You'll  live  with  me. 
You're  none  too  fat,  and  a  little  feeding  up  will 
do  you  good.  You'll  take  your  old  room." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Stanton  again,  obedi- 
ently. (Mr.  Borlase's  manner  was  a  continuous 
invitation  to  gratitude.)  "  I'm  sure  it's  a  very 
liberal  arrangement."  And  to  his  boyish  inex- 
perience it  appeared  so.  Mr.  Borlase  looked  at 
his  watch. 

"  Eh,  eh  ?  Three  o'clock  ?  I  must  get  down 
stairs,"  he  said.  "  Do  what  you  like  this  after- 
noon. Go  out — or  I'll  tell  you  what,  get  your 
books  out  and  furbish  up  your  book-keeping. 
You'll  start  to-morrow  morning — that's  the  half 


BORLASE   &   SON  15 

week,  and  you'll  get  half  a  week's  pay  on  Satur- 
day." 

So  saying,  he  went  out,  meeting  Mrs.  Dobson 
in  the  passage.  "  Ah,  Housekeeper,"  he  said, 
"  by  the  way — that  butter-man's  bill  mounts  up 
rather."  Mr.  Borlase  was  no  pedant  to  give 
margarine  its  scientific  name. 

"  It  do,  sir,"  said  the  housekeeper,  "  though  I 
try  to  keep  it  as  low  as  I  can,  sir.  But  it's  'ard 
this  cold  weather  to  get  the  butter  to  spread, 
sir;  and  these  late  nights  the  young  men  eats  a 
good  deal  of  cheese." 

"  You'd  better  cut  the  cheese  yourself  in 
future,  Housekeeper,"  said  Mr.  Borlase  reflec- 
tively. "  And  about  the  butter,  if  it  don't  go  so 
far  this  weather,  I'll  talk  to  Simpson  about  it, 
when  I  pay  his  bill  on  Saturday,  and  see  whether 
we  can't  do  it  a  little  cheaper.  We're  being 
eaten  out  of  house  and  home  this  way." 

So  saying  he  descended  to  the  ground  floor 
and  entered  the  shop. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    CUSTOMS    OF   TRADE 

No  form  of  arithmetical  torment  is  more  dis- 
tasteful to  the  judicious  schoolboy  than  the 
wantonly  complicated  exercise  called  "  Bills  of 
Parcels;"  but  Stanton  did  not  murmur  when  his 
first  task  proved  to  be  an  exaggerated  form  of 
this  puzzle,  in  the  shape  of  a  huge  batch  of 
wholesale  invoices  which  he  was  bidden  to 
"  check." 

He  had  been  punctual  at  the  breakfast  table, 
and  Mr.  Borlase  noted  in  an  approving  silence 
that  he  had  substituted  black  cloth  jacket  and 
waistcoat,  with  dark  trousers,  for  the  suit  of 
tweed  he  had  come  home  in.  The  shopmen  wore 
"  tails,"  to  which  as  yet  Stanton  only  aspired ; 
otherwise  he  was  clothed  much  as  they  were. 
He  felt  presently  rather  glad  that  he  had  not 
yielded  to  ambition.  For,  to  a  raw  lad,  the  eyes 
of  something  over  a  score  even  of  shop  "  young 
ladies,"  presented  some  terrors,  and  he  coloured 
under  their  scrutiny  when  his  entrance  was 
found  to  be  regarded  as  the  signal  for  the  girls, 
suddenly  hushed,  to  take  their  seats  along  one 
whole  side  of  two  long  trestle-supported  boards 
with  which  Mr.  Borlase's  cross-table  formed  a 
hugely  elongated  T.  The  young  men  sat  oppo- 


BORLASE   &   SON  17 

site  them  in  equal  silence.  Conversation  was 
not  allowed  after  seats  were  taken,  unless  the 
brief  remarks  addressed  by  Mr.  Borlase  to  the 
Deity  before  and  after  the  meal  could  be  thus 
intituled. 

Each  of  the  assistants  had  a  thick  earthenware 
plate  and  three  slices  of  still  thicker  bread,  "  but- 
tered "  chiefly  in  the  middle  at  this  season  of  the 
year.  A  few  large  plates  of  surplus  slices  testi- 
fied the  unstinted  freedom  of  the  employes'  ap- 
petites. Their  tea  was  already  steaming  in  cups, 
also  thicker  than  a  fastidious  appetite  might 
have  preferred — but  nothing,  probably,  can  dis- 
courage a  shop-assistant's  thirst  for  tea.  It  was 
drunk  in  huge  gulps,  and  with  a  hasty  appre- 
ciation, now,  and  at  dinner,  and  at  tea-time; 
always  rather  hurriedly  and  always  with  a  curi- 
ous noisiness,  "  just  like  water  running  down  a 
bath-waste,"  Stanton  remarked  to  himself.  The 
time  allotted  to  refreshment  had  to  be  made  the 
most  of,  like  everything  else  at  Borlase's,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  drink  hot  tea  quickly  and  silently 
too. 

The  draper  lifted  a  plated  dish-cover  and 
helped  Stanton  to  excellent  bacon  and  poached 
eggs;  a  rack  of  dry  toast  stood  at  his  elbow.  He 
ate  with  a  good  appetite,  but  with  some  eager- 
ness to  get  the  meal  over.  As  soon  as  the  clos- 
ing Grace  served  as  an  intimation  for  the  assist- 
ants to  shuffle  out,  he  rose;  but  Mr.  Borlase 
checked  him,  with  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  Wait  a  bit,"  he  said.     "  Wicksted !  " 

A  tall,  lean  man  of  perhaps  five  and  thirty, 


i8  BORLASE   &   SON 

who  had  just  come  in,  not  having  breakfasted 
with  the  "  hands,"  disengaged  himself  from  his 
fellows.  He  now  approached  the  Principal  and 
stood  awaiting  orders.  Mr.  Borlase  kept  him 
still  standing  until  the  last  young  lady  had  gone 
out.  Then  he  said: 

"  Wicksted  "  ("  Mr."  was  only  used  in  the 
presence  of  customers:  it  is  one  of  the  minor 
technicalities  of  trade  that  any  drudge  becomes 
"  Mister "  so-and-so,  so  long  as  the  shop  is 
open),  "  Wicksted — this  is  my  adopted  son,  as 
you  know :  Mr.  Stanton  Borlase.  He  is  now  in 
the  employ  of  the  shop.  You  will  put  his  name 
on  the  pay-roll  as  from  this  morning :  twenty-six 
pounds  a  year.  The  place  I  told  you  to  make  in 
your  desk  is  for  him.  He  will  help  you  with  the 
books,  for  the  present.  Find  out  what  he  can 
do,  and  let  him  do  it  so  as  to  help  you  all  he  can. 
He  won't  save  you  very  much  time  the  first  few 
weeks.  After  that  I  will  give  you  something  to 
fill  up  on.  Just  take  him  on  with  you.  He  is  in 
a  rare  hurry  to  begin." 

Wicksted  heard  this  exhortation  standing  and 
in  silence.  At  the  mention  of  his  own  name, 
Stanton  rose,  and  put  out  his  hand;  but  Mr. 
Borlase  pulled  him  gently  down  again,  and  the 
comprehending  Wicksted  ignored  the  gesture. 
He  was,  Stanton  presently  found,  rather  better 
educated  than  his  fellows,  sullenly  respectful  to 
Mr.  Borlase,  diligent  at  his  work — as  indeed  he 
needed  to  be  in  order  to  finish  it  in  time — and  at 
first  little  inclined  to  be  talkative  with  anyone. 
There  were  one  or  two  cheap  volumes  in  his 


BORLASE   &   SON  19 

drawer,  one  of  which  he  carried  away  with  him 
at  night  and  brought  back  in  the  morning. 

The  enclosed  desk — a  sort  of  waterless  aquar- 
ium in  mahogany  and  plate  glass — to  which  he 
now  led  the  way,  had  a  couple  of  stools  in  it, 
one  of  them  obviously  new.  Wicksted  put 
a  wad  of  invoices  before  Stanton. 

'  You  might  begin  by  checking  these,  sir," 
he  said;  and  thereupon  commenced  his  own 
work  at  the  other  end  of  the  desk. 

Stanton  stumbled  at  the  outset. 

"  What  do  you  mean? "  he  asked,  after  read- 
ing and  re-reading  the  engraved  headings  of  one 
or  two  bills. 

"  Go  over  the  calculations  and  additions," 
Wicksted  replied  from  afar,  "  and  see  that  they 
are  right.  As  you  do  them,  tick  each  item;  then 
initial  each  bill  in  the  corner  as  you  pass  it." 

The  sound  commercial  education  had  not  in- 
cluded this  technicality,  and  indeed  Stanton  was 
to  find  soon  that  it  had  extended  to  few  of  the 
things  he  was  expected  to  know.  He  flushed  a 
little  and  set  to  work,  however.  After  poring 
over  the  first  bill  for  half  an  hour  (during  which 
Wicksted  was  called  away  to  receive  some 
orders  from  the  Principal)  he  found  himself  yet 
at  a  standstill.  Mr.  Borlase  came  in  and  peeped 
over  his  shoulder. 

"  Well,  my  boy,  what's  the  job  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Checking  bills,  sir." 

"  How  are  you  getting  on  ?  " 

"  Not  very  well,  I'm  afraid;  I  can't  make  it 
out,  quite,"  said  Stanton,  blushing  again.  "  I 


20  BORLASE   &   SON 

was  really  waiting  for  Mr.  Wicksted  to  come 
back  and  explain." 

"What's  the  difficulty?"  inquired  Mr.  Bor- 
lase,  putting  on  his  gold-rimmed  spectacles, 
worn  low  on  the  nose,  and  looking  down  at  the 
desk  with  a  consequent  depression  of  the  eyes, 
which  gave  him  an  air  of  some  severity.  It  was 
his  pride  to  know  every  detail  of  the  work. 

"  A  hundred  and  three  and  three-eighths  D. 
W.  un-B.  Cal.,  s.  h.  job,  four  and  ninepence," 
Stanton  read,  stumbling  over  the  abbreviations. 
"  I  make  it  twenty-four  pounds  eleven  shillings 
and  a  farthing  and  a  half;  the  account  says  two 
pound  and  elevenpence." 

Mr.  Borlase  frowned.  "  A  hundred  and  three 
and  three-eight's  double-width  unbleached  cal- 
ico sheeting,  job  line,  at  four  and  nine  the  do- 
zen," he  translated.  "  Calico  is  bought  by  the 
dozen  yards  and  sold  by  the  yard:  it  is  a  four 
three-farthing  line,  which  is  always  the  same  in 
the  wholesale  as  in  the  retail.  Four  three-farth- 
ing calico  carries  no  profit  except  the  counting- 
house  discount  on  the  statement." 

The  bulk  of  this  explanation  only  confused 
Stanton  further  by  its  superfluities;  but  he 
grasped  the  essential  point.  "  I  see,"  he  said 
eagerly,  "  four  and  nine  is  the  price  of  a  dozen 
yards;  I'll  cast  it  out  again."  And  he  began  to 
write  figures  on  the  back  of  the  invoice. 

"  Don't  scribble  on  the  bill  like  that,"  said 
Mr.  Borlase  testily.  "  Take  a  bit  of  scrap  paper. 
And  there's  no  occasion  to  figure  it  all  out  again. 
It  should  be  a  twelfth  of  what  you  made  it. 
Don't  you  see  that?  " 


BORLASE   &   SON  21 

Stanton  coloured  yet  again.  "  I  beg  pardon ; 
I  ought  to  have  seen  that,"  he  said.  "  Yes," 
(after  a  moment)  "  it's  quite  right.  Two  pounds 
and  elevenpence."  He  ticked  the  item  and 
passed  to  the  next,  Mr.  Borlase  looking  over  his 
shoulder  and  making  him  horribly  nervous, 
until  a  customer  providentially  passed  near,  and 
the  draper  bustled  out  to  speak  to  her.  Pres- 
ently Wicksted  came  back.  Stanton,  with  a 
vast  amount  of  "  rough  "  calculations  on  pieces 
of  paper  beside  him,  had  struggled  through  two 
or  three  invoices  by  now.  The  noise  of  the  shop 
distracted  him  and  conversation  across  the  near 
counters  perpetually  forced  itself  upon  his 
understanding:  he  had  yet  to  acquire  the  in- 
stinctive familiarity  with  figures  which  enables  a 
trained  book-keeper  to  calculate  almost  auto- 
matically and  in  silence,  hearing  and  remember- 
ing any  overlying  words  without  being  dis- 
tracted by  them. 

"  You're  not  getting  on  very  fast,  are  you, 
sir?"  Wicksted  enquired  good  naturedly  and 
with  a  glance  that  assured  him  of  Mr.  Borlase's 
convenient  distance. 

"  No,  I'm  not,  I  must  confess,"  said  Stanton 
wearily.  "  I'm  not  used  to  figuring  with  a  lot  of 
talk  all  round  me.  And  look  here,  you  needn't 
'  sir '  me.  I'm  here  to  learn,  and  you've  for- 
gotten more  than  I  know — that's  easy  to  see. 
Show  me." 

"  Oh,  you'll  get  into  it,"  said  Wicksted  kindly 
responsive.  "  It's  chiefly  knack  and  the  know- 
ledge of  the  way  some  things  are  charged.  Tell 


22  BORLASE   &   SON 

me  when  you  stick  anywhere;  it's  better  than 
trying  to  worry  it  out.  And  when  your  head 
gets  worried,  take  a  turn  at  docketting  these 
things."  He  took  down  a  fresh  bundle  of  pap- 
ers, and  selecting  the  first,  folded  it  inside  out 
into  a  narrow  oblong,  glanced  at  the  name  en- 
graved on  it,  and  wrote  on  the  back  near  the 
top, 

"  Schweitzer  &  Brunn.  £8-18-4." 

"  Like  so,"  he  said.  "  That'll  give  your  head 
a  rest.  When  you  have  got  clear  a  little,  go 
back  to  your  bills.  I'll  do  some  of  'em  with  you; 
you're  not  up  to  our  fractions  I  can  see.  It's  bet- 
ter to  dodge  'em  than  to  work  'em  all  out  school- 
fashion."  And  he  proceeded  to  dissect  a  com- 
plicated invoice,  showing  Stanton  how  to  avoid 
the  minuter  fractions  and  so  bring  about  a  result 
with  relatively  few  figures,  which  the  stricter 
academic  method  had  worked  out  to  enormous 
denominators. 

Meantime  the  shop  was  filling.  As  Christmas 
approached,  every  day  would  bring  an  increase 
of  business,  and  all  the  more  festive  articles  of 
Borlase  &  Company's  stock  already  ex- 
perienced a  large  demand.  By  lunch  time 
Stanton's  head  was  spinning.  His  back  ached, 
and  his  eyes  were  misty.  Work,  he  was  begin- 
ning already  to  find,  was  a  very  different  thing 
from  study;  and  the  college,  while  it  had  taught 
him  with  magnificent  accuracy  how  to  write  to 
Messieurs  Smith,  Jones  &  Company  of  Bor- 
deaux that  their  esteemed  favour  advising  draft 


BORLASE   &   SON  23 

for  one  hundred  guineas  for  so  many  casks  of 
Medoc  had  been  received,  and  their  disposition 
would  be  duly  honoured,  had  entirely  failed  to 
show  him  how  a  statement  of  account  should  be 
checked  by  its  component  invoices,  or  how  to 
share  a  general  discount  in  the  various  depart- 
ments among  which  the  different  items  had  to 
be  divided.  But  he  stood  sturdily  to  his  guns, 
carried  his  difficulties  to  Wicksted,  and  (under 
the  latter's  guidance)  began  to  make  for  himself 
a  sort  of  ready  reckoner  for  calculations  which 
he  found  to  recur  often.  At  eight  o'clock  he 
had  quite  a  little  pile  of  verified  invoices  to  his 
credit.  It  was  even  a  little  disappointing  that 
he  had  nowhere  caught  "  the  wholesale  "  trip- 
ping. 

"  You  don't  think  I  shall  have  missed 
anything?  "  he  inquired,  with  anxiety. 

"  Oh  no;  not  if  you've  checked  every  item 
till  you  got  it  right.  You  see  it's  a  thousand  to 
one  against  their  making  the  same  mistake  as 
you  and  besides  these  fellows  are  slick  at  it. 
They  don't  often  go  wrong." 

He  was  standing  with  his  hat  on  and  book  in 
hand,  ready  to  go.  It  was  what  is  called  a 
"  threepenny  classic  "  in  paper  covers — a  trans- 
lation from  La  Motte  Fouque,  dog-eared  with 
frequent  pocketting.  Wicksted,  the  artist  of 
Borlase  &  Company's  window-cards,  aspired  to 
literature  also. 

"  I'm  off  home.  I  don't  live  in  the  men's 
quarters  in  Denmark  Street,"  he  explained. 
"  I'm  married  and  live  out,  y'  know." 


24  BORLASE   &   SON 

Stanton  hesitated.  "If  you  care  to  wait  until 
I  get  a  hat,  I'll  walk  a  little  way  with  you,  if  you 
like,"  he  said  timidly.  "  I'm  muzzy  with  this 
thick  air." 

"All  right.  I'll  wait  for  you  outside,"  said 
the  judicious  Wicksted.  "  I  shall  be  very  glad 
of  your  company,"  he  added,  cordially  enough. 

So  presently,  not  without  a  certain  satisfaction 
at  this  opportunity  of  examining  one  another's 
disposition,  they  walked  together  down  the 
street,  a  little  crowded  now,  for  the  weather  had 
improved,  and  the  air  was  sharp  and  pleasant 
with  frost.  At  least  it  seemed  pleasant  to  Stan- 
ton.  Wicksted  shivered  a  little,  and  buttoned 
his  thin  overcoat  closer  over  his  chest,  turning 
up  the  collar. 

Stanton  wore  no  overcoat,  and  did  not  feel  the 
need  of  one.  The  hot  shop,  and  the  good  din- 
ner he  had  eaten  with  Mr.  Borlase  at  the  young 
men's  tea-time,  still  warmed  him.  One's  atti- 
tude towards  the  weather  is  after  all  largely  a 
matter  of  nutrition,  and  Wicksted  was  none  too 
well  fed. 

Presently  they  struck  into  Rye  Lane,  where  a 
Salvation  Army  girl  was  endeavouring  to  keep 
together  a  shivering  crowd.  Opposite,  battered 
gateways,  wide  open,  offered  consolation  of 
another  sort  in  the  shape  of  a  recreation  ground, 
with  neglected  boat-swings  on  one  side  and  a 
penny-gaff  flaunting  paraffin-oil  flare-lamps  at 
the  end.  Hard  by,  a  bicycle  shop  attracted 
Stanton's  eye. 

"  Do  you  ride?  "  he  asked  Wicksted. 


BORLASE   &   SON  25 

"  No.  No  time,  no  money,  no  inclination," 
said  the  latter.  "  You  see  I  don't  see  too  much 
of  the  wife  anyhow;  and  with  a  little  readin' — I 
go  in  for  readin',  rather — and  the  home  to  keep 
up,  and  something  to  be  put  by  for  a  bad  day, 
I've  a  pretty  full  use  for  my  money." 

"Got  any  children?"  Stanton  inquired. 

"  No,  thank  God !  "  said  Wicksted  heartily. 
"  We'd  have  a  struggle  to  live,  the  wife  and  I,  if 
we  had.  As  it  is,  we  get  along  pretty  nicely. 
Kids  eat  money !  " 

He  spoke  the  sentiments  of  his  class.  Few 
shopmen  marry  at  all,  though  many  of  them  are 
"  engaged  "  or  "  walk  out  with  someone  " — 
matrimony,  dimly  intended,  never  seeming  very 
near.  An  object  of  legitimate  ambition  is  "  the 
wholesale,"  where  a  fortunate  assistant  may  at 
times  find  employment  that  is  more  or  less 
stable,  and  with  good  fortune,  capable  of  yield- 
ing marrying  wages — which  means  anything 
over  two  pounds  a  week.  A  childless  marriage 
is  considered  fortunate — so  short-sighted  is 
love's  young  dream.  Wicksted,  as  we  have 
heard,  received  "good  money";  but  then  he  had 
talent,  and  had  mounted  to  the  summit  of  retail 
aspiration,  the  "  books."  He  did  not  serve  at 
the  counters.  His  gift  of  ticket  writing,  more- 
over, as  it  enabled  Mr.  Borlase  to  save  many 
pounds  in  the  course  of  the  year,  doubtless  con- 
tributed to  his  own  emolument  nearly  the  same 
number  of  shillings,  being  considered  (as  the 
draper  frequently  pointed  out)  in  his  wages. 
The  young  men  of  the  counters  seldom  soared 


26  BORLASE   &   SON 

above  a  pound  a  week,  "  in  "  (that  is  with  their 
food  and  lodging  provided),  and  indeed  this 
amount  was  considered  a  prize.  The  young 
ladies  earned  much  less,  and  were  worse  lodged 
in  addition;  but  there  are  even  more  shop-girls 
in  the  labour  market  than  countermen,  and  Mr. 
Borlase  could  always  choose  from  a  score  of 
applicants  when  a  vacancy  called  for  an  adver- 
tisement in  the  religious  press — the  recognised 
medium. 

Some  of  these  facts  were  implied  in  conversa- 
tion by  Wicksted;  and  Stanton  perceived  that, 
as  a  beginner,  he  had  been  treated  by  his  patron 
more  liberally  than  an  outsider  could  have 
hoped. 

"  Look  here,"  said  Wicksted,  presently,  as 
their  talk  began  to  lead  them  rather  far  down  the 
High  Street,  "  don't  let  me  take  you  farther 
than  you  meant  to  come." 

"  No — that's  all  right,"  said  Stanton.  "  So 
long "  (he  suggested)  "  as  I'm  not  hindering 
you." 

"  Not  at  all,"  replied  Wicksted.  "  I  have  a 
good  way  to  go  yet.  A  little  farther  on,  you'll 
find  the  streets  pretty  full,  though.  But  I  ex- 
pect you  know  this  part,  don't  you?  " 

"  I  don't  think  I've  ever  been  past  the  Green 
— not  at  night,  anyhow,"  said  Stanton. 

"  Oh,  then  you'd  better  keep  on,"  replied  his 
Mentor-for-the-nonce.  "  If  you  haven't  seen 
Wai  worth  at  night,  its  worth  seeing.  'Can't  say 
I've  much  taste  for  it  myself;  but  I  daresay  you 
might  find  it  amusing,  as  you  don't  have  to  do  it. 


BORLASE   &   SON  27 

It's  a  sort  of  market,  you  know — all  barrows 
and  coster-mongers,  and  a  good  deal  of  chaff. 
Saturday  night's  the  great  time;  but  this  week 
almost  every  night  is  a  sort  of  half  Saturday." 

So  they  walked  on.  Passing  Camberwell 
Green  and  working  their  way  along  the  Wai- 
worth  Road  they  presently  found  themselves, 
as  Wicksted  had  said,  in  a  kind  of  market.  The 
shops,  except  such  as  sold  provisions,  were  all 
closed,  though  some  enterprising  tradesmen 
kept  the  gas  alight  within,  that  their  Christmas 
stock  might  secure  a  sort  of  advertisement;  but 
barrow  men  and  their  wives,  displaying  along 
the  kerb-line  an  incredible  variety  of  merchan- 
dise, were  driving  considerable  trade.  The  two 
young  men  made  their  way  slowly  through  the 
crowd,  Stanton  greatly  interested  in  the  novel 
spectacle.  A  draper's  shop — wider  than  Bor- 
lase's  but  in  Wicksted's  opinion  not  nearly  so 
well  stocked — presently  arrested  them.  One 
large  window  was  filled,  in  a  curious  taste,  en- 
tirely with  mourning — mourning  of  all  degrees ; 
from  the  deeply  craped  attire  which  seems  to 
hint  of  an  affliction  quite  inconsolable  and 
represents  locally  the  highest  ideal  of  recent 
widowhood,  down  to  the  assuaged  sorrow  of 
half-mourning,  with  the  white  cuffs  and  neck- 
ribbons  permitted  to  relicts  of  longer  standing 
or  of  less  retentive  memory.  The  same  strange 
appetite  for  the  pomps  of  death  showed  itself  in 
a  flower-seller's  barrow  which  stood  in  the  gut- 
ter, displaying — for  the  accommodation  of  all 
tastes — huge  wreaths  of  white  flowers  at  one 


28  BORLASE   &   SON 

end,  and  smaller  artificial  ones  enclosed  under 
glass  at  the  other.  A  little  farther  on,  an  under- 
taker's window  was  filled  with  an  improbable 
merchandise  of  hatchments.  There  also,  like- 
wise, Stanton  observed  a  great  array  of  model 
tombstones,  calculated  to  meet  all  conceivable 
views  in  monumental  uncomeliness. 

The  crowd  was  thick  hereabout,  jostling 
itself  good-humouredly,  and  exchanging  jokes 
with  the  barrow-men.  Some  of  the  shops  ap- 
peared to  be  doing  a  good  trade,  and  one  was 
crowded  to  the  very  door.  Its  business  was  the 
sale  of  cooked  meats  of  dreadful  appearance. 
South  London  delights  in  greasy  food :  there 
was  a  brisk  sale  here  for  hot  roast  pork,  for  sau- 
sages swimming  in  liquefied  fat,  and  doubtful- 
looking  tomatoes,  in  the  same  medium,  gradu- 
ally cooking  over  gas.  There  seemed  to  be  no 
limit  to  the  demand  for  these  dainties,  for  the 
pavement  before  the  doors  which  led  to  them 
was  crowded  with  waiting  buyers,  and  Wicksted 
had  to  lead  young  Borlase  across  the  road, 
dodging  the  tramcars,  in  order  to  get  past  it. 

Stanton  looked  at  his  watch  here,  and  per- 
ceived that  it  was  time  to  turn  back.  So,  at 
Camberwell  Gate,  where  the  Atlas  omnibuses 
stop,  they  paused  awhile,  a  little  way  down  a 
side  street,  intending  to  part.  But  here,  some- 
thing which  had  occurred  in  the  shop  during  the 
afternoon  came  to  Stanton's  mind,  and  he  lin- 
gered to  question  Wicksted  about  it. 

"  What  did  the  governor  mean  by  that  note 
he  passed  over — just  after  you  came  in  from 
dinner?  "  he  asked. 


BORLASE   &   SON  29 

"  Note  ?  What  note  ?  "  inquired  Wicksted, 
taxing  his  memory. 

"  '  Miss  — '  Somebody — I  forget  the  name — 
'  threepence.'  "  Stanton  remembered. 

"  Oh— ah!  "  replied  Wicksted.  "  Oh,  that's  a 
fine,  you  know.  A  mistake,  or  breaking  some 
rule.  In  this  case  it  was  being  late,  after  dinner. 
Haven't  you  seen  the  rules?  " 

"  No ;  I  never  heard  of  them,"  said  Stanton, 
apprehensively.  "  You'd  better  show  them  to 
me.  The  governor  doesn't  like  it  if  one  gets 
out  of  order." 

Wicksted  laughed.  "  Oh,  they're  mostly 
things  that  won't  affect  you,"  he  said.  "  But 
I'll  get  you  a  copy.  Every  new  hand  receives 
one,  and  is  expected  to  know  all  about  the  rules. 
If  they  don't  know  'em,  or  don't  keep  to  'em, 
they  get  fined." 

"  Then  did  you  have  to  go  and  make  that  girl 
pay  threepence  ? "  inquired  Stanton,  hoping 
fervently  that  this  duty  might  not  eventually 
devolve  upon  himself. 

"  No,  no,"  laughed  Wicksted,  rather  uneasily. 
"  No.  It's  booked,  you  know." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  they  don't  really  have  to 
pay?" 

"  No.  They  have  to  pay,  but  it  is  stopped  on 
Saturday,  you  know.  I'll  tell  you  about  it  to- 
morrow— "  and  on  this  promise  they  bade  one 
another  "  good  night,"  with  a  handshake  which 
Stanton  proffered  and  Wicksted  did  not  this 
time  decline.  They  had  established  a  very 
cordial  understanding. 


30  BORLASE   &   SON 

Wicksted  was  a  kindly  soul,  with  vanity 
enough  to  keep  him  sweet,  and  sufficient  self- 
respect  to  make  him  a  pleasant  work-fellow  for 
a  healthy-minded  lad  in  Stanton  Borlase's  rather 
difficult  position.  He  neither  patronised  nor 
toadied  him,  having  indeed  too  much  good  sense 
for  the  one  mistake,  and  too  perfect  an  under- 
standing of  his  employer's  ways  for  the  other. 
Stanton  liked  him  well ;  and  Wicksted  was  quite 
prepared  to  like  Stanton. 

Next  morning,  the  drudgery  of  invoices  re- 
commenced ;  there  had  been  some  accumulation, 
as  Wicksted's  show-card  artistry  had  been  a 
good  deal  in  demand  latterly,  with  a  provident 
eye  to  Christmas.  He  was  now  engaged,  by 
command,  on  an  adornment  of  large  size,  made 
up  of  several  cardboards,  and  intended  to  decor- 
ate the  whole  width  of  the  shop.  "  A  merry 
Xmas  to  our  Customers:  peace  on  earth  and 
goodwill  towards  men  "  was  the  legend  ordained 
by  Mr.  Borlase.  Some  linen  holly  leaves,  from 
stock,  were  neatly  glued  down  by  way  of  border- 
ing, copiously  interchanged  with  red  sealing- 
wax  berries;  the  wording  was  added  in  lamp- 
black mingled  with  gum,  the  initials  illuminated 
in  a  style  which  disaccorded  atrociously  with 
the  other  ornaments,  without  in  the  least  dis- 
turbing the  artist's  complacency. 

In  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  Stanton,  after 
repeated  calculations  and  "  provings,"  brought 
a  mistake  to  Wicksted.  He  had  lost  faith — 
after  many  mare's  nests — in  finding  a  real  error : 
"  the  wholesale "  appeared  to  be  impeccable. 


BORLASE   &   SON  31 

He  looked  only  for  the  discovery  of  his  own 
blunder. 

"Look  here,  Mr.  Wicksted,"  he  said;  "I 
can't  make  this  agree  anyhow.  They  make  it 
five  pounds  eighteen.  I  make  it  six  pounds 
eight." 

"  Eh,  what?  "  asked  Wicksted,  leaving  off  in 
the  middle  of  the  initial  X  into  which  the  first 
syllable  of  his  "  Christmas "  was  with  such 
strange  irreverence  contracted.  "Which  way? 
Against  themselves?  It  can't  be!  Let's  see." 
He  took  Stanton's  pencil  and  made  the  reckon- 
ing far  more  expeditiously  than  the  latter  had 
done.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  you're  right.  They've 
done  themselves  for  ten  bob,  right  enough." 

"  What  do  you  do  in  such  a  case?  "  Stanton 
asked. 

"Do?  You  can't  do  anything,"  said  Wick- 
sted. "  Let  it  slide.  It  won't  make  any  balance 
in  the  books;  we  simply  enter  up  the  total." 

He  regarded  the  question  as  closed. 

"  But  they've  cheated  themselves,"  Stanton 
objected. 

"  Yes,  of  course.  That's  their  affair.  We 
don't  undertake  to  look  after  their  interests," 
said  Wicksted.  "  All  we've  got  to  do  is  to  see 
that  they  don't  overcharge  us." 

Stanton,  turning  red,  said  nothing.  Wicksted 
coughed  behind  his  hand.  At  one  time  the  thing 
might  have  shown  itself  in  some  other  light: 
but  long  usage  at  Borlase  &  Company's,  and 
the  constant  audition  of  Mr.  Borlase's  business 


32  BORLASE   &   SON 

maxims,  had  accustomed  him  to  the  practice  of 
the  house. 

"  Oh,  we  do  hundreds  of  pounds  with  those 
people  in  the  course  of  a  year,"  he  said.  "  They 
make  enough  out  of  us.  Besides,  it  isn't  busi- 
ness ;  we  can't  keep  their  books  and  our  own  as 
well.  It  isn't  the  custom  of  the  trade.  You'll 
find  that  everywhere.  Let  it  slide.  Of  course 
if  they  make  a  mistake  against  us,  it's  our  busi- 
ness to  point  it  out :  they'd  never  find  it  out  and 
tell  us.  Stuff  often  measures  out  (for  instance) 
a  little  over  or  a  little  short.  If  it's  short,  we 
claim  it,  and  they  always  take  our  word;  if  it's 
over,  it  makes  a  little  more  trouble  than  a  mere 
clerical  error,  because  we  have  to  note  it  in  the 
stock  book;  otherwise  that  would  be  thrown  out 
of  balance.  But  this  only  makes  the  depart- 
ment ten  shillings  better  off.  Simply  check  it 
off,  as  if.it  was  right.  That's  all.  Your  initials 
mean  that  the  bill  isn't  over;  that's  all  that  is  re- 
quired," Wicksted  concluded.  "  Look  here,  I 
must  get  on,  or  I  shall  never  finish  this  bloomin' 
text  in  time  for  Christmas  Eve." 

Just  then  Mr.  Borlase  came  into  the  enclosure. 
"  Fines  Book,"  he  said  in  a  voice  too  low  to  be 
heard  outside  in  the  shop;  and  then, as  Wicksted 
handed  him  a  long,  narrow  volume,  bound  in 
white  parchment :  "  Miss  West,  passing  a  cus- 
tomer. That's  the  third  time,  I  fancy,  isn't  it?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Hope  not,"  Wicksted  mut- 
tered, still  intent  on  X  for  "  Christmas." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  draper,  who  had  not  heard 
him,  being  intent  on  the  book.  "  Third  time. 


BORLASE  &   SON  33 

Had  experience  enough  to  know  better  too. 
Well — a  week's  notice,  Saturday :  don't  tell  her 
before ;  and  of  course  a  shilling  fine.  We  can't 
have  this  sort  of  thing  continually  occurring: 
it's  such  a  bad  example.  Put  an  ad.  in  the  paper 
next  week,  W. :  no  use  doing  it  now.  It's  a  good 
job  her  notice  extends  over  the  busy  time." 

"  What  pay  in  the  ad.,  sir?  The  same  as  Miss 
West — twelve  shillings?  "  Wicksted  inquired. 

"  Twelve  shillings !  No !  What  are  you 
thinking  of?  She  had  a  good  deal  too  much. 
Seven  shillings  for  a  new  young  lady;  one  of 
the  experienced  hands  must  give  an  eye  to  Miss 
West's  counter.  How  are  you  getting  on  with 
the  text?  Hum:  'Merry  X — '  and  the  rest 
sketched  in.  '  Peace  on  earth  and  goodwill :'  I 
think  I'd  put  a  capital  G  for  'goodwill/  It 
begins  to  look  shapeable.  Here :  enter  this  fine 
before  you  put  the  book  away.  I  must  go." 

He  had  raised  himself  on  the  rail  of  Stanton's 
chair  as  he  was  speaking,  to  look  into  the  shop, 
where  a  customer  appeared  to  be  complaining. 
Dropping  to  the  floor,  he  hurried  out.  Stanton, 
who  had  paused  in  his  work  to  listen,  held  out 
his  hand  for  the  book,  which  Wicksted,  shutting 
it  up  on  a  piece  of  blotting  paper,  handed  to  him 
without  speaking. 

Stanton,  looking  down  the  list,  found  it  only 
'half  comprehensible.  There  were  numerous 
penal  offences;  as  thus:  "Late  for  breakfast 
(Rule  3) — sixpence;  stock  not  tidy  (Rule  22) — 
threepence;  omitting  to  mark  length  on  piece- 
goods  (Rule  18) — sixpence;  mistake  in  bill 


34  BORLASE   &   SON 

(Rule  2) — threepence.  Second  time — sixpence ;" 
and  so  forth.  Wicksted,  questioned,  pleaded 
curtly  "custom  of  the  trade,"  without  looking  up 
from  his  text-painting.  There  were  rules  (he 
remarked)  in  all  trades — and,  by  the  way,  Stan- 
ton  would  find  the  rules  of  Borlase  &  Co.  pasted 
up  inside  the  flap  of  the  desk,  if  he  liked  to 
look. 

As  this  desk  was  littered  with  papers,  how- 
ever, he  did  not  avail  himself  at  once  of  this  per- 
mission. "What. about  Miss  West?"  he  en- 
quired. "  Is  she  going  to  be  sent  away?  " 

Wicksted  looked  up  cautiously  and  surveyed 
the  shop.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  and  more's  the  pity : 
she  was  a  good  girl,"  (he  seemed  to  speak  of 
the  dismissed  damsel  as  if  she  were  dead,  Stanton 
whimsically  noted) :  "  one  of  the  best.  Stie 
won't  get  a  berth  very  easily  at  her  age.  That's 
her  with  the  yellow  face,  selling  trimmings.  She 
was  good-looking  when  I  came  here  first — not 
so  pretty  as  Edie  was  though  (that's  my  wife) : 
but  she  had  a  good  complexion  and  rather  nice 
eyes.  She's  got  skinny  since." 

"  But  what  has  she  got  the  sack  for?  "  Stan- 
ton  enquired. 

"  She  has  got  the  sack  for  having  three  swops : 
and  we  shall  get  fined  ourselves  if  we  don't  stop 
jawing,"  said  Wicksted,  who  secretly  hated  Bor- 
lase and  all  his  works,  though  he  was  not  such  a 
fool  as  to  let  Stanton  see  it. 

"  But  what's  '  the  swop? '  "  inquired  Stanton, 
plausibly,  for  the  schoolboy's  appetite  for  sur- 
reptitious conversation  was  not  dead  in  him.  "  I 


BORLASE   &   SON  35 

can't  avoid  doing  it,  if  I  don't  know  what  it  is." 
"You  won't  'do'  it"  Wicksted  explained, 
smiling  at  his  colleague's  eager  inexperience. 
"  '  The  swop  '  is  letting  a  customer  go  without 
buying  "  he  added.  "  Sometimes  you  haven't 
just  what  they  ask  for :  sometimes  they  lose  their 
tempers,  damn  'em :  sometimes  they're  in  a 
hurry.  The  best  plan  is  to  call  the  governor,  if 
you  can't  put  them  off  with  something  different. 
If  he  can't  pacify  'em,  of  course  the  thing  doesn't 
go  down  to  you :  it  isn't  your  swop  then.  Other- 
wise it  is  a  bob  fine,  if  the  governor  twigs  it :  and 
three  in  a  month  is  the  bag:  now  do,  for  good- 
ness' sake,  let  me  get  on." 

There  was  nothing  unkindly  in  the  dismissal 
of  the  subject:  the  two  understood  and  had 
begun  to  like  each  other.  Stanton  resumed  his 
work,  and  in  the  strain  which  it  inflicted  on  his 
mind  speedily  forgot  the  matter  they  had  been 
talking  of.  An  ordinary  and  ordinarily  healthy 
lad  does  not,  at  Stanton's  age,  envisage  very 
closely  any  aspect  of  life  with  which  he  is  not 
directly  concerned.  Youth,  in  fact,  is  highly  self- 
ish, not  from  indifference  to  other  people's 
pains  and  misfortunes,  but  from  sheer  lack  of 
imagination — just  as  a  cat  walks  along  a  high 
wall  without  a  qualm  of  giddiness,  because  it 
never  occurs  to  a  cat  that  a  fall  would  be  very 
unpleasant. 

Wicksted,  who  was  older,  had  plenty  of  imagi- 
nation: he  intensely  pitied  the  poor  drudges 
around  him,  himself  a  drudge  only  a  little  better 
off.  He  even  supposed  himself  to  detect  a  similar 


36  BORLASE   &   SON 

compassion  in  his  friend.  But  Stanton,  as  a  fact, 
hardly  realised,  until,  long  afterwards  it  was  di- 
rectly pointed  out  to  him,  that  this  mean-spirited 
filching  of  threepences  from  under-paid  girls 
was  a  squalid  crime.  He  had  not  even  enough 
experience  to  know  what  that  worst  (almost)  of 
all  disasters,  "  the  sack,"  must  have  meant  for 
Miss  West :  he  did  not  know  that  it  meant  active 
privation  and  debt,  at  the  best,  if  some  stranger 
proved  kind;  or  actual  starvation  if  fortune 
should  be  wholly  against  her.  He  was  certainly 
not  callous,  certainly  not  cruel  or  indifferent  to 
suffering,  when  suffering  actually  showed  him 
its  face.  But  he  was  not  even  sorry — it  had  not 
occurred  to  him  to  be  sorry — for  the  girl  whose 
fate  he  had  just  learned,  until  he  noticed,  as  the 
second  party  for  tea  made  way  for  him  on  the 
stairs  (he  was  just  going  up  to  his  own  dinner 
with  Mr.  Borlase)  that  this  Miss  West,  who  had 
formerly  been  "  good-looking,"  was  crying  into 
her  'handkerchief.  Then,  he  was  very  sorry  for 
her  indeed,  and  would  have  said  so,  if  he  had  not 
been  too  shy:  he  was  sorry,  to  see  her  crying, 
not  because  he  had  the  least  inkling  of  what  she 
was  really  crying  about. 

Miss  West  had  a  cold  it  appeared,  also:  and 
perhaps  that  is  why  the  eyes,  once,  according  to 
Wicksted,  "  rather  nice,"  had  sunken  in  and  be- 
come dull  and  brown-lidded.  But  that,  after 
all,  was  common  to  many  of  Borlase  and  Com- 
pany's young  ladies — that  and  a  grey  sallowness 
of  complexion,  a  flatness  of  the  chest,  and  a  cu- 
rious undeveloped  look.  These  things,  Wick- 


BORLASE   &   SON  37 

sted  might  have  grimly  opined,  were  no  doubt 
a  custom  of  the  trade.  There  were  many  cus- 
toms in  Mr.  Borlase's  trade,  and  few  of  them, 
somehow,  were  altogether  pleasant  customs,  as 
Stanton,  in  his  degree,  was  beginning  to  ascer- 
tain. 


CHAPTER  III 

ERRORS   AND    OMISSIONS 

STANTON'S  sound  commercial  academy  had,  he 
continued  to  discover,  omitted  to  teach  many 
of  the  things  he  would  now  be  glad  to  know.  It 
had  likewise  failed  to  prepare  him  for  the  alleged 
commercial  custom  by  which  Wicksted  ac- 
counted for  his  treatment  of  the  undercharged 
invoice :  school-taught  book-keeping  (one  hears) 
has  seldom  much  practical  value.  It  was  not  by 
the  sophisms  he  had  offered  to  Stanton  that  Mr. 
Wicksted  satisfied  his  own  soul.  In  the  days 
when  he  reflected  on  such  matters  at  all,  he  had 
merely  said  to  himself,  in  the  manner  justly  de- 
spised by  Felix  Holt,  that  he  was  a  husband  and 
had  his  wife's  bread  to  think  of.  And  Stanton, 
who  was  not  possessed  of  even  that  excuse, 
ought  not  to  have  accepted,  as  he  appeared  to 
do  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  practice  which  im- 
puted gross  dishonesty  to  his  patron. 

But  once,  while  he  was  yet  at  school,  Stanton 
was  accused,  and  very  nearly  convicted,  of 
cheating  in  an  examination.  A  suspicious  com- 
munity of  errors  on  the  part  of  his  neighbour 
and  himself  had  attracted  attention :  and  the 
neighbour  had  so  volubly  protested  his  inno- 
cence, his  absolute  abhorrence  of  the  offence 


BORLASE   &   SON  39 

charged,  his  actual  inability,  from  defect  of  vis- 
ion, to  "  copy  off  Borlase,"  that  the  latter,  as 
shamefaced  and  silent  as  if  he  had  been  really 
guilty,  was  actually  set  aside  for  considered 
chastisement  next  day. 

Now,  a  schoolboy's  honour  is  a  very  peculiar 
thing,  and  one  not  easy  to  be  understood  by  the 
philosopher.  It  chanced  that  a  boy  who  sate  in 
the  desk  behind  Stanton  had  observed  the  whole 
proceeding  just  now  recounted.  This  observer 
knew  very  well,  all  the  time,  that  Nupkins 
Minor  was  the  culprit,  and  not  Borlase.  He 
said  as  much  in  the  playground  directly  school 
was  over:  not  (however)  in  Borlase's  presence, 
for  the  latter  had  been  locked  up  in  lonely 
duress,  that  his  intercourse  might  not  contam- 
inate Nupkins  Minor  and  his  other  compan- 
ions. Mark  now  the  point  of  honour.  John- 
son, the  detective  genius  who  fiercely  told  the 
truth  in  the  playground,  would  not,  for  his  life, 
have  denounced  the  traitor  to  the  authorities: 
to  do  so  would  have  been  to  "  sneak."  Better 
that  the  innocent  should  suffer  stripes.  But  he 
had  no  compunction  in  assisting  to  twist  the 
arm  of  Nupkins  Minor  as  a  preliminary  measure, 
what  time  a  swift  messenger  sped  to  the  gymna- 
sium to  invite  in  council  a  senior  boy  of  influ- 
ence, and  Nupkins  Minor's  big  brother;  that 
measures  might  if  possible  be  concocted  in  re- 
lief of  Borlase's  wrongs. 

"  Well,  if  Borlase  didn't  fudge,  why  didn't  he 
say  so?  "  demanded  Nupkins  Major,  with  heat, 
on  being  informed  throughly  of  the  cause. 


40  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  It's  all  very  well  to  say  he  didn't,  but  we've 
only  Johnson's  word  for  it,  and  my  brother's 
word  is  as  good  as  his  any  day  of  the  week. 
What  does  Borlase  say?  " 

"  He  doesn't  say  anything." 

"  Then  he  fudged.  If  he  hadn't  fudged 
wouldn't  he  have  said  so  fast  enough?  And 
looky  here,  Johnson,  I'll  lick  you  if " 

A  fourth-form  boy  interfered.  "  Borlase 
didn't  need  to  copy  off  Nupkins  Minor,  Nup- 
kins  Major,"  he  said.  "  Why,  it's  his  best  sub- 
ject— French:  and  anyone  knows  Nupkins 
Minor  is  turned  twice  a  week  regularly  for  that. 
Anyone  but  a  bloomin'  examiner  would  know 
very  well  Borlase  didn't  need  to  fudge." 

The  senior  boy,  more  impartial,  intervened. 
"  That's  a  fact  "'  he  said.  "  I  know  that  old 
Humpy  had  Nupkins  Minor  '  in '  last  half 
over  his  French.  Didn't  he  now,  Nupkins 
Minor?" 

Nupkins  Minor,  held  fiercely  at  the  wrists  by 
indignant  custodians,  admitted  the  impeach- 
ment. 

"  Well,  what  did  you  go  and  copy  off  Borlase 
for?"  demanded  the  culprit's  brother,  who  be- 
gan to  have  an  uncomfortable  consciousness  of 
family  responsibility. 

"  I  never,"  said  Nupkins  Minor,  sullenly 
aware  of  this  sudden  desertion  by  his  own  flesh. 

"  Well,  then "  demanded  Lloyd,  the  other 
senior  boy,  "  how  do  you  account  for  making 
the  same  bulls  as  Borlase?  " 

Nupkins  Minor  had  no  explanation  to  offer. 


BORLASE   &   SON  41 

"  You  might  as  well  tell  the  truth,"  said  Lloyd 
— clearly  convinced  of  Nupkins's  guilt.  "  Now 
you  did  fudge,  didn't  you?  " 

"  Of  course  he  done  it :  I  see  him,"  said  John- 
son, ungrammatical  but  triumphant. 

"  Shut  up.  Let  the  fellow  speak  for  himself," 
said  Nupkins  the  elder;  but  he  had  qualms  that 
the  family  escutcheon  was  being  smirched. 
"  And  if  you're  lying,  Johnson,  I'll  lick  you 
blind,  mind  you." 

"  I  ain't "  said  Johnson  with  conviction. 
"  And  you  won't  lick  me.  It's  him  what's  lying." 

Nupkins  Minor  was  in  the  toils.  He  hung  his 
head,  deserted  by  the  effrontery  which  had 
served  him  in  the  class-room. 

"  If  he  didn't  fudge,  let's  see  him  do  the 
blooming  translation  again,"  a  born  jurist  pro- 
posed. 

"Did  you  fudge  or  didn't  you?"  repeated 
the  relentless  senior. 

Nupkins  Minor  broke  down  and  began  to 
snivel.  "  You're  all  on  to  me,"  he  declared. 

"  Did  you  fudge  or  didn't  you?  " 

A  pause.  "  I  just  caught  sight  of  one  answer 
"  he  began. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  I  told  you  he  done  it," 
cried  the  accusing  Johnson,  in  triumph.  Nup- 
kins Major  hustled  him  inexcusably.  "  Don't 
hit  a  man  when  he's  down,"  he  said;  and  im- 
mediately afterwards  betook  'himself  to  cuffing 
his  younger  brother's  ears  with  vigour.  "  You 
dirty  little  cur,"  he  remarked  indignantly. 

"  Look  here,  Lloyd,"  said  the  top  boy  of  the 


42  BORLASE   &   SON 

class,  hitherto  silent.  It  was  he  who  had  sent 
for  the  older  boys,  he  who  (with  a  delicate 
inspiration)  had  moved  the  inclusion  of  Nupkins 
Major  in  the  council.  "  Look  here,  Lloyd ;  we 
have  got  to  know  what  to  do  about  Borlase. 
We  didn't  send  for  you  and  Nupkins  Major  to 
give  Nupkins  Minor  a  licking.  We  want  to 
know  what's  to  be  done." 

Lloyd  delicately  perpended  this  question. 
The  healthful  system  of  partial  self-govern- 
ment in  vogue  at  public  schools  \vas  not  used 
at  the  Commercial  Academy.  Even  senior 
boys  were  not  in  the  councils  of  Dr.  Humphrey, 
the  head  master.  "  You  can't  very  well  go  to 
Humpy  about  it,"  said  Lloyd  reflectively.  "  I 
don't  know,  in  a  case  like  this,  that  I  mightn't 
speak  myself.  What  would  be  better,"  he  sug- 
gested, suddenly  inspired,  and  turning  to  his 
class-mate,  "  would  be  for  Nupkins  Major  to  go 
in.  It's  his  brother." 

The  personage  appealed  to  looked  sullenly 
down.  "  What  a  little  ass  you  must  have  been 
to  do  it,"  he  said  to  his  brother.  "  And,  by  the 
way,  what  an  ultra-jackass  Borlase  must  have 
been  not  to  speak  up  for  himself.  If  you'd  both 
stuck  out,  there  needn't  have  been  any  trouble  at 
all.  Humpy  couldn't  expel  you  both."  (The 
point  of  honour  will  be  noted  again:  the  mere 
act  of  copying  wasn't  involved  in  it :  that  was  an 
act  of  lawful  warfare  against  authority.  The 
mere  difficulty  was,  to  save  the  wronged  Bor- 
lase without  the  nameless  enormity  of  telling  on 
a  school-fellow.) 


BORLASE  &   SON  43 

"I'll  tell  you  what,"  said  Lloyd  at  length. 
"  Nupkins  Minor  will  have  to  go  in  and  sneak 
on  himself.  There's  no  other  way  out  of  it. 
And  it's  your  business,"  he  added,  address- 
ing the  junior  class,  "  to  see  that  he  does  it." 

Nupkins  Major,  relieved  from  the  danger  of 
having  to  officiate  in  person,  briskly  applauded 
the  decision.  "  Yes :  and  what  they'll  give  you 
is  jam  tarts  and  chocolate  eclairs  to  what  you'll 
get  from  me  if  you  don't  do  it,"  he  remarked  to 
his  brother,  with  a  significance  which  the  latter 
understood. 

When  Nupkins  Minor  therefore — under  the 
persuasion  of  certain  arts  on  which  the  feminine 
reader  may  consult  a  brother — had  made  his 
confession,  first  in  private,  and  next  morning 
to  the  assembled  school;  when,  in  considera- 
tion of  the  awakened  conscience  by  which  he 
was  supposed  to  have  been  moved  to  this  act 
of  reparation  he  had  been  spared  the  high 
penalty  of  expulsion,  and  condignly  swished 
in  lieu  thereof,  the  examining  master  put  to 
Stanton  the  very  .question  which  Nupkins  Major 
had  first  raised.  "  Why  on  earth  couldn't  you 
say  you  didn't  copy?  "  he  asked.  And  Stanton 
had  still  no  answer. 

"  Little  fool :  why  couldn't  he  speak  up  for 
himself,"  commented  the  triumphant  Johnson. 
"  I  told  you  Nupkins  done  it." 

This  same  reticence  clung  to  Stanton  when 
free  of  school.  He  could  with  reluctance 
speak  out.  He  bought  what  he  did  not  desire 
at  shops,  from  a  difficulty  in  persisting  in  an  ex- 


44  BORLASE   &   SON 

planation,  half  understood  by  the  salesman,  of 
what  he  did  want.  He  would  rather  lose  him- 
self than  ask  his  way  in  the  street :  only  in  the 
last  resort  of  despair  would  he  seek  out  a  police- 
man (whom  he  deemed  the  only  possible  source 
of  such  information)  to  direct  him.  A  native 
pride  forbade  him  to  ask  the  smallest  favour  of 
anyone:  he  would  suffer  a  wrong,  rather  than 
insist  upon  his  rights :  his  seat  was  always  being 
taken  in  railway  trains,  his  place  encroached 
upon  in  a  crowd.  He  did  not  lack  physical 
courage:  in  time  he  picked  up  a  certain  moral 
courage  too,  in  contact  with  the  world;  but  at 
this  time  even  a  manifest  duty  could  not  decide 
him. 

He  said  nothing  of  the  deficient  invoice 
to  his  guardian. 

He  was  picking  up  knowledge  every  day, 
and  every  day  seeing  an  aspect  of  the  shop 
hitherto  unknown  to  him. 

The  frost  had  held.  The  air  was  clear  and 
bright  outside,  with  a  promise  of  snow  in  it. 
"  We  seem  as  though  we  might  have  a  real  Old- 
English  Christmas  for  once,"  people  kept  saying 
to  Mr.  Borlase:  and  Mr.  Borlase  explained  to 
Stanton  over  dinner  that  a  heavy  fall  of  snow 
just  before  Christmas,  without  the  usual  Eng- 
lish thaw,  was  good  for  some  scores  of  pounds 
in  business  for  the  establishment.  "  People  will 
always  spend  more  money  in  a  frost  than  in  a 
thaw,"  he  said :  and  Wicksted  confirmed  this 
curious  piece  of  information. 

But  for  Stanton,  unaccustomed  to  so  much 


BORLASE  &   SON  45 

confinement,  Saturday  before  Christmas  (Christ- 
mas Eve  fell  on  the  Monday,  in  that  year)  was  a 
day  of  misery.  From  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing the  shop  gradually  filled.  Wicksted's  text 
was  still  incomplete,  and  that  artist  had  been  al- 
lowed to  use  the  meal-room  that  he  might  work 
upon  it  undisturbed,  Stanton  being  set  to  re- 
ceive money  and  give  change — a  task  of  which 
his  unaccustomed  fingers  made  rather  bungling 
work.  Once  or  twice  one  or  other  of  the  assist- 
ants saved  him  from  a  mistake.  They  one  and 
all  pointed  these  errors  out,  he  was  quick  to 
observe,  in  the  same  way.  That  is  to  say,  they 
glanced  swiftly  round  the  place  to  make  sure 
that  Mr.  Borlase  was  not  looking,  and  then 
passed  back  the  money  and  bill  to  Stanton.  Not 
one  of  them  spoke.  Stanton's  boyish  good 
looks,  and  his  easy,  unsnobbish  manners,  had 
given  him  friends  all  over  the  shop;  nobody 
would  willingly  get  him  into  trouble. 

But  he  was  painfully  nervous  all  day.  After 
lunch,  Wicksted  relieved  him,  and  he  was  set  to 
work  by  his  guardian  to  walk  the  shop,  open 
and  close  the  door,  and  in  the  language  of  that 
worthy  "  to  make  himself  agreeable  to  people  " 
— work  which  his  shyness  made  horribly  dis- 
tasteful. 

Everyone  at  the  counter  was  required,  to-day, 
to  please  at  least  three,  and  perhaps  four,  cus- 
tomers at  once.  Despite  the  brisk  cold^  out  of 
doors,  the  shop  had  grown  stuffy  and  unpleas- 
ant. By  four  o'clock,  when  the  gas  had  been 
burning  an  hour,  the  place  seemed  to  him  un- 


46  BORLASE   &   SON 

bearable.  He  was  to  learn  that  it  could  grow 
worse  and  yet  be  supported:  and  the  uniform 
pallor  and  unwholesome  looks  of  the  men  and 
girls  began  to  be  easily  accounted  for,  even  by 
that  boy's  mind  of  his.  All  the  week  the  shop 
had  been  open  later  than  usual.  That  was  why 
supper,  the  meal  whereat  the  too  rapid  disap- 
pearance of  cheese  had  excited  Mrs.  Dobson's 
apprehensions,  was  allowed.  Strolling  into  the 
assistants'  dining-room  one  night,  Stanton 
found  that  only  the  men,  as  a  rule,  took  advan- 
tage of  the  concession.  A  chubby  "  improver  " 
— a  young  girl,  that  is,  from  the  country,  who, 
in  consideration  of  the  opportunity  afforded  her 
of  obtaining  London  experience,  was  permitted 
to  serve  Mr.  Borlase  gratis — assuaged  an  appe- 
tite not  yet  ruined  by  gas  and  ill-ventilated  bed- 
rooms: and  sheer  hunger  forced  one  or  two  of 
the  other  young  women  to  eat  dry  bread:  only 
the  robuster  digestion  of  the  improver  ventured 
on  cheese. 

At  no  extremity  of  discomfort  or  oppression 
did  any  employe  or  employee  dream  of  mur- 
muring. Elsewhere,  folks  were  better  off;  that 
was  well  known.  But  to  risk  unpaid  idleness  in 
the  hope  of  bettering  one's  lot,  was  an  expedient 
too  perilous  to  be  entertained :  Borlase  &  Com- 
pany's wages  did  not  conduce  to  thrift,  or  to 
the  accumulation  of  a  nest-egg,  and  Mr.  Borlase 
himself,  resentful,  omniscient,  everywhere  im- 
minent, was  dreaded,  no  less  as  an  employer, 
than  as  one  who  could  withdraw  employment. 
Many  of  the  assistants  had  endured  his  service 


BORLASE  &   SON  47 

for  years,  and  the  longer  they  remained,  the 
more  unmurmuringly  they  accepted  him.  No 
detail  of  the  business  was  too  subtle  for  his  ap- 
prehension, no  act  of  anyone  in  the  shop  too  fur- 
tive for  him  to  detect.  His  rule  was  not  merely 
of  iron  sternness,  but  of  steely  cunning.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  convey  what  dread  this  over- 
powering personality  awakened  in  the  hearts  of 
its  dependants.  Even  Stanton — indulged,  for 
the  dignity  of  his  adoption,  beyond  his  fellows — 
felt  its  oppression,  now  that  he  was  fully  entered 
in  the  employment  of  the  House.  Not  alone 
the  word,  but  the  wordless,  half-divined  wish  of 
Mr.  Borlase  was  more  than  law.  Even  at  the 
Vestry,  and  in  his  other  public  offices,  Mr.  Bor- 
lase ruled  as  by  sheer  terror.  It  is  a  fearful  thing 
to  contemplate,  but  for  more  than  fifteen  years 
it  is  doubtful  if  the  man  had  ever  been  contra- 
dicted ! 

As  Saturday  night  progressed,  the  shop  grew 
damply  hot.  The  gas  which  made  all  things 
look  bright  and  cheery  from  outside,  communi- 
cated a  painful  smell  to  the  stagnant  air.  All 
the  windows  were  dim  with  steam-drops.  Stan- 
ton's  eyes  smarted  and  itched :  his  head  swam  a 
little,  and  he  was  more  sleepy  than  he  ever  re- 
membered to  have  been  before:  for  use  is  re- 
quired in  order  to  tolerate  so  large  a  contamina- 
tion of  the  atmosphere. 

In  spite  of  all  the  assistants  could  do,  the  place 
was  growing  untidy.  Light  goods,  hanging 
from  the  gas  brackets,  and  from  wires  stretched 
across  the  shop,  were  constantly  being  pulled 


48  BORLASE   &   SON 

down  by  inquisitive  customers.  Most  of  the 
latter,  with  a  general  sense  of  Christmas-time  in 
their  minds,  were  fairly  good-humoured,  though 
here  and  there  a  testy  matron  would  give  trouble 
to  a  fagged  assistant,  grown  stupid  with  exces- 
sive weariness.  No  one  (least  of  all  Mr.  Bor- 
lase,  whose  face  shone  with  perspiration  and 
obsequiousness)  seemed  to  notice  that  the  girls 
at  the  many  counters  were  almost  dropping  with 
fatigue.  Stanton  learned  more  of  the  places 
where  stock  was  kept,  during  this  night  of  stress 
and  suffering,  than  he  would  have  picked  up  in  a 
month  of  careful  examination.  He  constantly 
ran  into  the  dim  warehouse  behind  the  shop,  to 
bring  out  rolls  of  cloth  or  calico,  and  was  glad  to 
breathe,  even  for  a  moment,  in  air  a  little  cooler 
and  fresher.  Once,  coming  swiftly  round  the 
door  of  this  place  eafly  in  the  evening,  he  by 
chance  ran  briskly  into  the  arms  of  the  plump 
improver,  and  in  boyish  fun  gave  her  arm  a 
squeeze  which  made  her  giggle — a  circumstance 
which  (had  he  known  it)  was  recounted  and 
laughed  over  many  times  during  Sunday,  and 
increased  his  popularity. 

"  I'm  sure  young  Mr.  Borlase  is  a  most  affable 
young  gentleman  "  was  the  comment. 

At  half-past  eleven  the  front  door  was  closed, 
and  the  last  customers — mostly  difficult  to 
please — were  one  by  one  shown  out  by  Stanton 
through  a  side  entrance.  By  order  of  Mr.  Bor- 
lase he  wished  each  departing  guest  "  The  com- 
pliments of  the  season,  ma'am."  The  amount 
of  stock  which  a  lady  of  the  Suburb  is  capable  of 


BORLASE   &   SON  49 

inspecting  before  she  can  make  up  her  mind  to  a 
purchase,  would  do  credit  to  the  most  fastidious 
West-End  matron.  But  by  degrees  even  the 
slowest  people  began  to  go  reluctantly  away. 
Mr.  Borlase  had  for  some  time  been  busied  in 
the  mahogany  enclosure,  counting  out  the  as- 
sistants'" wages,  with  the  fines  book  (rather  full 
this  week)  propped  up  before  him.  The  "  peace 
and  goodwill "  text,  in  several  parts,  stood  on 
end  against  the  glass  complete.  The  young  men 
and  young  women  disposed  of  their  customers: 
the  last  of  all  was  a  lady  Who,  to  Stanton's  cer- 
tain knowledge,  had  been  in  the  place  an  hour 
and  a  half.  She  was  made  happy  at  last  by  the 
fortunate  selection  of  a  magenta  velveteen 
blouse  of  quite  singular  hideousness;  but,  dis- 
satisfied with  the  gilt  buttons  upon  it,  had 
spent  an  hour  on  the  choice  of  a  new  set.  Imi- 
tation tortoise-shell,  in  celluloid,  finally  met  her 
fancy. 

Some  of  the  assistants  were  already  paid,  and 
had  gone  to  the  meal-room.  As  Stanton  finally 
closed  the  door  and  joined  Wicksted  and  Mr. 
Borlase,  he  noticed  Miss  West,  the  girl  who  had 
been  "  swopped."  She  lingered  near  the  round- 
topped  hole,  like  a  booking-office  window,  with 
its  tiny  mahogany  desk,  over  which  Wicksted 
was  paying  out  money.  Once  she  almost  came 
up  to  it;  then  she  turned  away  to  let  another 
girl  precede  her.  She  was  very  pale,  and  kept 
pulling  one  damp  hand  nervously  through  the 
other.  She  lingered  till  every  one  else  had  been 
paid,  and  Mr.  Borlase  had  begun  to  place  the 

4 


50  BORLASE   &   SON 

sections  of  the  text  end  to  end  along  the  desk, 
in  order  to  judge  of  the  general  effect.  The  last 
letters  of  "  Merry  Christmas  "  (which  Mr.  Bor- 
lase  had  at  the  last  moment  caused  to  be  partly 
redrawn  in  order  to  spell  the  first  word  with  an 
I,  E — "  Merrie  ")  blocked  up  the  window,  and 
Wicksted  had  to  stand  up  on  the  rail  of  his 
stool  to  pass  the  money  over. 

"Ten  and  nine;  a  shilling  and  threepence  off 
in  fines,  Miss  West,"  he  said.  "  You  remember 
the  threepence?  It  was  a  mistake  in  the  bill; 
first  time,  only  threepence;  and  the  shilling  is, 
of  course,  that  swop."  He  hesitated  a  moment, 
still  holding  the  money,  for  which  her  hand  was 
outstretched.  Then,  with  a  side  look  at  Mr. 
Borlase — still  occupied  with  "  peace  and  good- 
will " — he  went  on :  "  It's  the  third  swop ;  er — 
I'm  to  give  you  a  week's  notice."  The  girl  said 
nothing.  She  took  the  money  and  went  straight 
upstairs. 

Christmas  Eve  was  an  aggravated  repetition 
of  Saturday.  Wicksted's  handiwork,  nailed  to 
the  wood  casing  of  a  girder  which  crossed  the 
low  ceiling  of  the  shop,  near  the  door,  occupied 
nearly  the  whole  width  of  the  establishment. 
The  local  paper,  in  its  "  Christmas  Shopping  " 
article,  commented  on  the  geniality  and  good 
taste  of  this  adornment,  "  so  characteristic  "  (it 
remarked)  "  of  the  benevolent  kindliness  of  our 
premier  merchant."  Mr.  Borlase  liked  to  be 
called  a  merchant.  He  was  a  liberal  and  con- 
sistent advertiser. 

To-night  Stanton  had  been  entrusted  with  an 


BORLASE   &   SON  51 

easy  place  at  one  of  the  counters,  under  super- 
vision. The  "  private  mark  "  of  the  house  had 
been  explained  to  him — all  goods  being  priced 
in  letters  instead  of  figures.  The  plan  is  to  dis- 
cover a  word  having  ten  letters  all  of  which 
happen  to  be  different,  and  use  these  letters 
instead  of  the  nine  integral  numbers  and  the 
cipher,  o.  Borlase  &  Company's  word  was 
"  Cumberland  " — C  standing  for  one,  U  for  two, 
and  so  on.  This  not  very  abstruse  mystery  is 
further  increased  when  a  price  has  to  be  named 
audibly,  by  the  use  of  the  syllable  "  siz  "  to  di- 
vide shillings  from  pence.  Thus  "  B  siz  N- 
three  "  means  four  and  ninepence  three-farth- 
ings. Stanton  had  at  first  to  run  these  letters 
over  on  his  fingers  in  order  to  translate  them. 
Early  in  the  evening — he  was  selling  bonnet 
trimmings — he  blundered  badly,  and  an  opulent 
customer  somehow  failed  to  observe  the  error. 

The  lady  had  bought  a  considerable  bunch  of 
artificial  daisies.  They  were  irreproachable  on 
the  ground  of  illusion  (justly  deprecated  by  Mr. 
Ruskin  as  an  artistic  device),  having  black  cen- 
tres and  pink  petals.  After  endless  vacillation  a 
bunch  priced  at  "  C  siz  U  three  " — one  and  two 
pence  three-farthings — was  chosen.  Stanton  in 
making  out  the  bill  wrote  "  two  and  a  penny 
three-farthings,"  and  was  duly  paid. 

The  female  mentor  under  whom  he  was  work- 
ing chanced  to  be  comparatively  disengaged. 

"  What  did  you  charge  Mrs.  Grey  for  those 
d'isies?"  she  inquired  in  a  low  voice,  as  soon 
as  that  lady  had  departed. 


52  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Two  and  a  penny-three,"  Stanton  replied. 

"Wasn't  it  C  siz  U-three?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  that's  one  and  two-three." 

"  Why,  yes ;  of  course.  What  a  fool  I  am ! 
Wonder  if  I  can  catch  her  up." 

"  Of  course  not ;  besides,  she's  satisfied." 

"  But  that  won't  do.  You  knew  her,  didn't 
you?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  knew  her — Mrs.  Grey.  She's  a 
careless  sort;  lots  o'  money.  Do  her  good." 

"Know  where  she  lives?" 

"  Yes.  Barry  Road.  The  big  white  house. 
Why?" 

"  Why,  then  it's  all  right.  We  can  send  a 
letter.  I'll  tell  my  father." 

The  girl  sniffed.  "  I  shouldn't  advise  you," 
she  said.  Then,  to  a  customer  who  had  just 
come  in:  "  Heeliotrope  ribbon,  Miss?  Yes." 

But  Stanton  had  already  departed,  that  his 
courage,  this  time,  might  not  cool.  He  went 
straight  to  Mr.  Borlase,  with  a  very  red  face, 
and  told  his  story. 

"  More  fool  you,"  said  the  draper  harshly. 
"  Can't  you  tell  one  from  two  yet?  I've  spent 
enough  to  teach  you  arithmetic.  Who  did  you 
say  it  was?  " 

"  Mrs.  Grey,  Barry  Road,  I'm  told." 

"  Oh,  her !  Well,  she'll  never  twig  it ;  we're 
elevenpence  '  in.'  And  you're  threepence  out, 
by  the  way.  Go  and  put  it  down  in  the  fines 
book  yourself.  Don't  make  such  a  blunder 
again." 


BORLASE   &   SON  53 

As  his  guardian  said  nothing  of  the  rectifying 
of  the  mistake,  Stanton  said  nothing  either.  It 
was  his  first  serious  confession,  and  the  manner 
of  its  reception  chilled  him.  He  made  many  mis- 
takes during  the  next  few  weeks ;  some  were  de- 
tected, more  concealed;  he  had  had  his  lesson  on 
the  disadvantage  of  self-incrimination.  Some- 
times his  inexperience  betrayed  these  attempts, 
and  Mr.  Borlase  would  comment  caustically 
upon  them  at  dinner;  for  his  first  kindliness  on 
the  lad's  return  home  was  blunted. 

But  on  this  twenty-fourth  of  December  he 
was  good-humoured,  and  disposed  to  be  kind. 

"  I  want  to  give  you  a  suit  of  '  tails,'  "  he  said 
after  dinner,  when  the  pudding  had  been  taken 
away.  "  You  can  go  to  my  tailor  on  Thursday 
and  order  yourself  a  black  morning  coat  and 
vest  and  a  pair  of  trousers;  something  quiet; 
black,  too,  for  choice;  it's  the  most  gentle- 
manly." Mr.  Borlase's  ideal  of  male  fashion 
was  that  of  a  well-to-do  undertaker.  "  And 
here,"  he  added,  pushing  a  couple  of  sovereigns 
over  the  table,  "  is  something  to  put  into  the 
pocket  of  your  new  clothes."  Stanton  thanked 
him  warmly,  and  the  pair  hurried  back  to  the 
shop,  now  full  and  very  gassy. 

But  all  things,  however  unpleasant,  draw  to 
an  end,  and  Christmas  Eve  did  so  likewise.  The 
midnight  chimes  were  sounding  when  the  lights 
were  finally  turned  out.  Christmas  morning 
had  come. 

As  Mr.  Borlase  passed  out  of  the  shop  he  was 
stopped  by  a  trembling  girl.  It  was  Miss  West, 
"  under  notice." 


54  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  I  'ope  you'll  excuse  my  asking  you,  sir," 
she  said,  "  but  I  wished  to  know — as  it  is  Christ- 
mas— whether  you  wouldn't  overlook  my — my 
notice." 

Mr.  Borlase  stared,  aghast.  Stanton,  a  few 
paces  off,  lingered  to  hear  the  conversation, 
and  wras  sharply  bidden  to  "  go  upstairs." 
When  he  was  out  of  sight,  Mr.  Borlase  an- 
swered the  girl. 

"  Overlook  it,  Miss?     What  do  you  mean?  " 

"  Would  you  allow  me  to  stop  on,  sir?  " 

"Don't  you  know  the  rules  by  this  time?" 
inquired  the  genial  premier  merchant,  austerely. 

"  Yes,  sir.  I  know  I'm  in  fault.  But  the  first 
one — the  first  failure — was  on  the  very  first  day 
of  the  month.  And  I  haven't  any  '  people  '  now, 
you  know,  so  that  I  can't  go  to  anyone  until  I 
get  a  place." 

The  girl's  neck-ribbon  was  of  black  crape. 

"That's  very  well,"  said  Mr.  Borlase;  "but 
you  should  have  thought  of  that  before,  Miss." 

"  I  really  did  what  I  could,  sir.  The  thing 
the  customer  wanted " 

"  I  can't  go  into  that,"  Mr.  Borlase  inter- 
rupted hastily,  and  with  averted  eyes.  "  If  I 
break  through  rules  for  one  person,  I  must  do 
it  for  another.  I  must  be  fair  to  everyone ;  I  try 
to  be.  Don't  ask  me,"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  with 
a  conscience-stirring  intonation,  "  don't  ask  me 
to  be  unfair  to  your  fellow-assistants.  I  should 
have  thought  you  knew  my  principles  by  this 
time.  You've  been  here  long  enough." 

"  Twelve  years,  sir,"  Miss  West  reminded 
him. 


BORLASE   &   SON  55 

"  Quite  long  enough  to  learn  your  business. 
You  will  be  all  the  better  for  a  change  of  work. 
Don't  keep  me  up  any  longer,  please.  I've  done 
with  the  subject.  Rules  are  made  to  be  kep'  to. 
It  is  very  late,  and  I'm  tired." 

He  stepped  back  to  look  round  the  dark 
shop  and  assure  himself  that  no  gas  was  wast- 
ing. The  girl  slipped  upstairs  and  past  Stan- 
ton,  who  had  listened  at  the  landing.  It  oc- 
curred to  him  at  the  moment  that  probably  Miss 
West  was  tired  too. 

On  Wednesday  afternoon  a  letter  was  quietly 
handed  her  by  Wicksted,  who  had  taken  it  from 
the  postman.  She  was  "  serving,"  and  after  a 
puzzled  glance  at  the  envelope  put  it  in  her 
meagre  bosom.  The  next  girl  asked  laconically : 

"Advertising?" 

Miss  West  shook  her  head.  She  did  not 
speak. 

The  letter  contained  a  twenty-shilling  postal 
order  with  the  intimation,  in  a  boyish  hand 
clumsily  disguised,  that  this  money  was  "  from 
a  well-wisher." 

"  The  boy  is  kind  of  a  brick,"  said  Wicksted 
at  home,  with  a  grin,  for  the  story  soon  made  its 
way  to  his  ears.  "  But  it's  a  good  thing  the 
governor  didn't  tumble  to  it." 

"  The  old  beast !  "  was  his  wife's  comment. 
Mrs.  Wicksted  had  been  a  shop-girl  at  Borlase 
&  Company's  herself. 


CHAPTER    IV 

A   CHRISTMAS   DINNER 

THERE  is  a  place  in  South  London  called, 
unofficially,  Walworth.  Behind  a  certain  seg- 
ment of  the  main  road,  so  named,  stand  many 
streets  of  uniform  houses,  all  ugly,  all  fairly 
clean,  and  all  most  encouragingly  respectable. 
They  now  shelter,  very  often,  two  families,  for 
when  this  part  of  Camberwell  was  built  the 
average  of  prosperity  in  the  Suburb  was  higher; 
Camberwell  has  been  often  deserted  now  for 
Peckham,  where  you  may  have  a  thin  villa  of 
six  cupboard-like  apartments  and  a  bath-room 
for  eight-and-twenty  pounds  a  year.  In  addi- 
tion to  their  one  or  two  families,  as  the  case 
may  be,  many  houses  in  Walworth,  moreover, 
contain  a  "  lodger  " ;  that  is,  a  single  man,  gene- 
rally a  clerk  (and  a  clerk,  as  the  City  can  tell 
you,  of  quite  a  distinctive  type)  who  lives  alone, 
has  breakfast  and  supper  provided  for  him  by 
the  woman  of  the  house,  and  consumes  these 
repasts  in  a  bed-sitting-room,  high  up. 

The  houses  themselves  are  ugly  and  ignoble, 
their  very  adornments  foolish  and  repellant.  To 
passers-by,  window  ornaments  of  the  sea-shell 
flower  and  waxen-gooseberry  order  give  dread- 
ful promise  of  the  rooms  within.  Yet  these 
houses,  some  of  them,  are  the  home  of  lives 


BORLASE   &   SON  57 

which  might  put  our  cynicism  to  the  blush. 
Sometimes  in  the  most  improbable,  the  most 
grotesque  environments  we  might,  if  we  were 
fortunate,  know  ourselves  confronted  by  what 
even  Walworth  cannot  always  kill — Romance. 

There  was  little  enough  of  romance,  it  maj- 
be,  but  an  abundance  of  kindliness  and  good 
feeling  in  one  of  these  dark  houses  on  the 
Christmas  morning  which  arrived  for  us  so 
wearily  at  Borlase  &  Company's  just  now. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wheble,  having  a  numerous 
and  home-staying  family  as  contributories,  oc- 
cupied the  whole  of  a  twelve-roomed  house  in 
Arrow  Street,  save  for  a  fair-sized  apartment 
on  the  second  floor,  where  there  abode  a  lodger 
of  some  three  years'  standing.  According  to 
former  custom,  this  lodger,  Mr.  Peters,  had 
been  bidden  to  the  family  turkey.  He  was  a 
stout,  pasty-skinned  young  man  of  perhaps 
seven  and  twenty,  practically  alone  in  the  world, 
having  lost  his  parents  some  two  years  ago.  His 
brother,  at  one  time  an  assistant  at  Borlase's, 
was  also  dead.  Once  "  steady,"  he  had  fallen 
into  evil  ways,  and  contracted  a  bad  habit  of 
wishing  to  borrow  money,  which  led  Mr.  Peters 
to  change  his  lodgings.  The  latter,  who  was 
accustomed  to  hint  that  he  had  once  been  a 
bit  of  a  dawg,  seemed  to  have  picked  up,  in 
some  mysterious  way,  his  brother's  lost  "  steadi- 
ness." He  had  now  been  for  some  years  in  one 
situation,  and  earned  a  progressively  increasing 
salary,  of  which,  with  a  family  characteristic  of 
penuriousness,  he  took  extremely  good  care. 


58  BORLASE   &   SON 

Thus,  for  example,  he  might  have  spent 
Christmas,  and  the  Christmas-box  received 
overnight  from  his  "  firm,"  with  some  relatives 
of  his  dead  mother,  or  with  a  prosperous  brother 
who  managed  an  ironmongery  shop  in  Birming- 
ham. But  either  alternative  implied  a  journey 
by  rail,  and  possibly  presents.  Mr.  Peters  pre- 
ferred to  accept  the  hospitality  of  his  landlady's 
kitchen. 

The  turkey  had  been  dismembered,  the  saus- 
ages duly  shared,  the  Brussels-sprouts  and  crisp, 
brown  potatoes  duly  eaten,  and  all  washed  down 
with  an  opulent  variety  of  bottled  ale,  lemonade, 
and  a  variety  of  port  described  at  the  grocer's  as 
"  good  family  fruity."  Mr.  Peters  drank  port  all 
through  dinner.  The  pudding,  blazing  blue  with 
ignited  whiskey  in  the  interest  of  the  younger 
Whebles,  had  been  succeeded  by  mince  pies, 
and  by  almonds  and  raisins.  Mr.  Peters,  drawn 
unwillingly  into  a  public-house  raffle  by  a  fel- 
low-clerk, had  experienced  good  fortune,  and  in 
reciprocation  of  Mrs.  Wheble's  hospitality,  had 
brought  out  a  box  of  remarkable  cigars,  which 
had  been  passed  to  Mr.  Wheble  and  the  two 
oldest  of  his  sons.  The  children  had  departed  to 
play  out  of  hearing,  and  eat  oranges ;  the  hostess 
and  her  daughter  Prudence  were  removing  the 
last  of  the  plates  to  the  adjacent  scullery :  for  the 
meal,  as  usual  with  the  Whebles,  had  been  eaten 
in  the  kitchen,  where  Walworth  families  live 
except  on  Sundays  and  festivals  such  as  Christ- 
mas or  a  funeral,  and  where  they  are  always 
most  comfortable.  The  four  men,  ignoring, 


BORLASE   &   SON  59 

until  the  ladies  should  return,  the  suggestion 
that  they  should  go  into  the  parlour,  sat  with 
elbows  on  the  table  savouring  Mr.  Peters' 
cigars.  Mr.  Wheble,  who  had  taken  beer  with 
his  dinner,  was  now  tasting  the  family  fruity, 
and  his  sons  were  gossiping  of  business  with  the 
lodger. 

"  What  I  say  is,"  said  Harry  Wheble,  "  that 
no  matter  where  you  are,  you  'ave  to  put  up 
with  something.  I  don't  enjoy  having  to  work 
late;  but  you  have  to  do  it,  in  some  places." 

"  Why?"  demanded  his  brother,  an  aggressive 
youth,  who  worked  in  an  industrial  insurance  of- 
fice, known  popularly  as  the  "  penny  a  weeker," 
where  punctuality  at  both  ends  of  the  day  was 
the  rule.  "  Why  ?  Your  hours  are  from  so  and 
so  to  so  and  so :  nine  to  six-thirty  in  your  case, 
ten  to  six  in  mine.  You're  paid  to  work  so  many 
hours  a  week :  if  you  work  longer  you  ought  to 
be  paid  more.  I  have  my  overtime,  once  in  three 
years.  I  get  paid.  If  I  wasn't  paid  I  wouldn't 
take  it  on." 

"  That's  very  well,"  said  Harry.  "  That's  the 
rule  for  you  fellows:  it  isn't  the  rule  for  us 
fellows.  A  fellow  has  got  to  give  and  take.  If 
I  want  a  day  off  I  can  ask  for  it;  if  you  want 
one  it's  stopped  out  of  your  screw.  The  thing 
is  as  broad  as  it  is  long;  you  have  to  give  and 
take." 

"  More  giving  than  taking  in  your  case,"  said 
the  other. 

"  Harry's  quite  right  though,"  said  the  father. 
"  A  feller  can't  quarrel  with  his  bread  and  but- 
ter; eh,  Mr.  Peters?" 


60  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  the  latter  sagely,  drop- 
ping the  ash  from  his  cigar  into  an  empty  tum- 
bler. 

"  You're  in  a  very  decent  firm,  aren't  you?  " 
inquired  Tom  Wheble. 

"  One  of  the  best,"  said  Mr.  Peters  know- 
ingly. "  I  know  when  I'm  well  off." 

The  unusual  advantages  of  Mr.  Peters's  em- 
ployment were  a  favored  topic  of  conversation 
at  these  gatherings.  He  was  careful  to  have  it 
known,  however,  that  his  own  merits  accounted 
for  the  consideration  he  received. 

"  You  see  it's  like  this,"  he  said,  "  with  me. 
Of  course  old  Schneider,  our  book-keeper,  is  a 
beast.  Germans  always  are,  in  business.  They're 
accustomed  to  be  nigger-driven  themselves, 
when  they're  down;  and  when  they  are  down, 
they're  as  nice  as  pie.  When  they're  up,  they're 
the  worst  nigger-drivers  themselves.  Wen  I 
first  went  to  Douglas's  I  was  afraid  of  old 
Schneider.  '  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  Mr. 
Peters,'  he  used  to  say  "  (Peters  mimicked  ap- 
proximately the  broken  English  of  his  supe- 
rior) "  '  my  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  what  haf  you 
peen  doing  all  day?  '  And  if  I'd  been  doing  a  bit 
of  a  mike,  I  used  to  bustle  and  try  to  do  a  lot, 
and  ten  to  one  make  a  mistake  somewhere. 
Then  he'd  tear  round  like  a  cat  on  hot  bricks. 
Once  or  twice  he  threatened  to  tell  the  governor 
of  me,  and  I  used  to  get  frightened,  and  work 
like  a  good  'un  the  next  few  days.  But  after 
a  while  I  found  he  talked  just  the  same  to  the 
other  fellows,  and  nobody  ever  did  seem  to  get 


BORLASE   &   SON  61 

run  in  to  the  gov. ;  so  I  says  to  Thurlovv  one  day, 
w'en  he'd  been  getting  an  extra  wigging,  '  Ain't 
you  afraid  he  will  run  you  in  on  the  carpet  one 
of  these  days  ? '  I  said.  '  No  fear,'  says  old 
Thurlow  (he's  a  dry  old  stick:  been  in  the  firm 
twenty  years,  he  says;  before  Schneider's  time 
or  anyone's).  '  No  fear,'  he  says,  '  Mr.  Schnei- 
der won't  carpet  no  one.  Know  why?  Be- 
cause the  governor  wouldn't  like  it.  The  gov. 
hates  to  bully  any  one.  If  you  notice,  no  mat- 
ter what  you  do,  he  never  says  anything  about 
it,'  says  Thurlow ;  *  he  just  points  it  out,  and 
very  likely  makes  an  excuse  for  you  himself 
before  you  can  say  a  word  about  it.  I've  been 
here  twenty  years,  man  and  boy,'  Thurlow  says, 
'  and  I  never  had  a  harsh  word  from  Mr.  Doug- 
las all  the  while.' ' 

"  That's  a  deal  to  be  able  to  say,"  commented 
Mr.  Wheble. 

"  If  true,"  said  Tom,  who  appeared  to  hold 
a  watching  brief  against  employers  in  general. 

"  Think  it  is  true  ?  "  asked  Harry. 

"  I  shouldn't  wonder,"  said  Peters,  with  dis- 
crimination. "  You  see,  Thurlow  has  his  one 
job:  the  order  book.  He  sits  in  front  of  it  all 
day,  and  I  don't  say  but  what  he  keeps  it  well : 
he  paints  and  paints  at  the  figures  to  make  the 
job  last  out.  '  It  don't  do  to  do  too  much,'  he 
says  to  me  one  day.  '  You  only  get  other  peo- 
ple into  trouble,  and  don't  help  yourself/  That 
was  when  I  was  slippin'-in  to  something.  Thur- 
low can't  make  a  mistake  if  he  tried  to.  Now 
my  work  is  varied.  I'd  have  to  do  this,  that 


62  BORLASE   &   SON 

and  the  other.  If  I  didn't  keep  my  eyes  open 
I'd  make  ten  bulls  in  a  day,  and  everyone'd  hear 
of  it.  Even  if  Thurlow  did  slip  a  figure,  he'd 
be  bound  to  find  it  out  before  the  night." 

"Why?"  asked  Tom,  with  professional  in- 
terest. 

"  Why,  because  his  extensions  would  show 
him,  of  course,"  said  Peters.  "  But  that  isn't 
what  I  was  talking  about.  After  Thurlow  told 
me  that — I  hadn't  been  there  above  six  months 
— one  day  Schneider  was  a  bit  rottener  than 
usual.  A  Saturday  morning  it  was  (he's  always 
ten  times  more  nervous  on  Saturday  than  any 
other  day),  and  he  fidgetted  round  me  about 
half  an  hour.  At  last  he  says, '  I  can  see  I  won't 
be  able  to  do  any  goot  with  you,  Mr.  Peters,' 
he  says,  'until  I've  taken  you  in  to  the  governor: 
and  then  you'll  mos'  likely  get  the  sack.'  Now 
no  one  ever  gets  the  sack  at  our  place — cer- 
tainly not  for  a  little  mistake — so  I  said :  '  All 
right,  sir:  if  you  aren't  satisfied  with  me  you'd 
better  take  me  in.'  Well,  he  just  danced  round 
the  place.  '  You  are  impertinent,'  he  says. 
*  No,  I  ain't/  I  says.  '  You  are  a  goot  writer,  as 
regarts  that  is  concerned '  '  (Mr.  Peters  re- 
sumed the  German  accent,  which  in  his  interest 
he  had  a  little  forgotten),  "  '  putt  if  you  doand 
too  it  der  way  I  tell  you,  what  is  der  use  of  your 
goot  writink?'  'Well,  tell  the  governor,'  I 
says.  '  I'd  sooner  you  did  it  than  make  this 
fuss.'  '  How  dare  you  say  I  make  a  fuss ! '  he 
says,  and  then  he  danced  round  me  for  another 
half  hour;  and  when  two  o'clock  came  I  got 


BORLASE   &   SON  63 

my  money  from  Schneider,  put  on  my  hat  and 
walked  out,  without  saying  hog,  dog  or  devil." 
(Mr.  Peters  did  not  make  it  clear  why  Mr. 
Schneider  should  have  anticipated  any  of  these 
expressions.)  "  If  you'll  believe  me,"  said  Mr. 
Peters  emphatically,  rapping  on  the  table  with 
his  knuckles,  "  if  you'll  believe  me,  when  Mon- 
day morning  came,  Schneider  was  as  nice  as 
pie  to  me,  and  he  hasn't  threatened  me  with 
the  governor  since.  That  just  shows  what  I 
say,"  he  concluded,  somewhat  irrelevantly.  "  If 
the  firm's  a  good  firm,  you  needn't  care  for  any- 
one." 

The  ending  of  this  heroic  episode  had  been 
heard  by  Prudence  Wheble  and  her  mother, 
from  the  doorway.  At  the  opportunity  now 
afforded  the  latter  said: 

"  Well,  father,  now  perhaps  you'll  take  my 
advice  and  go  upstairs."  Mr.  Wheble  pushed 
back  his  chair,  and  emptied  his  glass  of  port 
before  rising.  Mr.  Peters  closed  and  picked  up 
his  cigar  box.  The  two  younger  men  followed 
him  to  the  door:  and  the  proposed  adjournment 
was  effected. 

None  of  the  WTheble  apartments  voiced  their 
past  and  present  prosperity  more  eloquently 
than  the  parlour.  It  had  green  repp  curtains  of 
a  devastating  tint,  fringed  with  gimp.  Match- 
ing the  curtains,  or  approximating  to  them,  the 
chairs  and  a  double-ended  sofa  of  plank  walnut 
were  similarly  upholstered  in  green  repp.  Over 
the  mantelpiece  hung,  high  up,  a  pair  of  por- 
traits: Mr.  Wheble  in  a  painful-looking  collar, 


64  BORLASE   &   SON 

Mrs.  Wheble  with  a  yet  more  agonising  simper 
and  a  starched  bib.  One  divined  somehow  that 
these  works  of  art  had  been  bought  for  a  great 
price,  in  company  with  a  dozen  cartcs-dc-visitc, 
which  was  indeed  the  case,  and  there  are  two  of 
the  cartes  in  the  album  I  keep  for  my  more  es- 
teemed friends,  to  prove  it.  The  new  gilt  of  the 
frame  which  enclosed  the  "hand-painted  enlarge- 
ments included  "  disaccorded  violently  with  the 
older,  but  greatly  superior,  casing  of  a  vast  oval 
looking-glass  beneath  them.  The  mantelpiece 
was  adorned  with  a  pair  of  lustres — a  sort  of  vase 
in  an  opaque  substance  like  blanc  mange,  orna- 
mented in  gold,  and  here  and  there  "  cut  "  so 
deeply  as  to  show  portions  of  transparent  glass. 
From  the  calyx-like  top  hung  a  sort  of  petticoat 
of  cut-glass  prisms,  holding  on  by  means  of 
wires  to  a  circle  of  rose-cut  "  drops  " :  the  whole 
very  ingenious,  probably  expensive,  and  not 
without  a  certain  old-time  charm,  reminiscent  of 
one's  great-aunts.  These  articles  of  luxury  and 
taste  occupied  the  extremes  of  the  mantelpiece. 
Next  them  was  a  pair  of  pink-faced  young 
ladies  with  white  hair,  protected  by  glass  shades 
having  a  fillet  of  chenille,  in  the  colour  called 
locally  "  maroon,"  round  the  bases ;  midway 
stood  a  vast  ormolu  clock,  likewise  under  a 
shade,  ornamental  rather  than  trustworthy, 
since  by  no  persuasion  could  it  be  induced  to  go. 
In  the  window,  on  an  unsteady  table,  stood  an- 
other enormous  shade  covering  a  sort  of  Chi- 
nese temple  having  lace  windows  and  a  Cupid 
seated  most  discordantly  on  the  top,  the  whole 


BORLASE  &  SON  65 

well  saved  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wheble's  bride- 
cake. The  bow  of  the  blind  archer  had  got 
broken,  off,  in  the  course  of  his  twenty  years' 
existence,  and  lay,  with  a  number  of  silver 
leaves,  on  the  base-board,  which  had  (like  the 
shepherdesses)  a  ring  of  chenille.  The  oval 
centre-table  was  covered  with  red  felt,  having 
a  printed  design  upon  it;  the  family  books  lay 
in  an  ordained  pattern  round  the  edges — a 
morocco  Bible,  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  (an 
unappreciated  masterpiece,  chiefly  valued  by  the 
children  on  account  of  its  illustrations),  a  vol- 
ume of  "  Good  Words  "  in  pimply  purple  cloth, 
a  huge  leather-covered  Prayer  Book,  "  Jessica's 
First  Prayer  "  in  green  and  gold,  with  a  chromo- 
lithograph let  in,  and  so  on.  In  the  midst  stood 
a  cut-glass  dish  full  of  oranges,  and  another  con- 
taining nuts.  The  iron  nut-crackers  were  lying 
beside  them,  between  the  Bible  and  "  Enquire 
Within  " — a  work  of  literature  which  I  absurdly 
forgot  to  mention  just  now,  though  when  I  have 
found  Mrs.  Wheble  momentarily  invisible,  it  has 
often  entertained  me  with  directions  how  to 
cook  a  partridge,  to  enter  a  room  and  to  clean 
kid  gloves.  The  carpet  had  a  design  of  inter- 
laced ferns  of  a  most  fortunate  indefiniteness, 
rendering  an  effect,  usual  with  tapestry  carpets, 
of  having  "  run  "  in  the  wash ;  but  there  was  a 
fearfully  distinct  hearthrug  before  the  bright 
steel  fender,  representing  a  copious  epergne  of 
flowers  and  fruit  flanked  by  peacocks  and  a  her- 
aldic-looking cat.  Hardly  anything  in  the  place 
was,  you  will  observe,  cheaply  pretentious.  The 

5 


66  BORLASE   &   SON 

brass  fire-irons  (necessitating  a  steel  poker,  al- 
lusively called  a  "  curate,"  to  do  the  real  work) ; 
the  Utrecht  drawing-room  suites,  and  "  art " 
decorations,  of  East  Dulwich  have  often  of- 
fended me  more,  while  they  have  seldom  formed 
the  setting  of  more  disinterested  kindliness,  or 
a  more  sterling  honesty  than  the  Wheble  family 
boasted,  or  rather  possessed  with  no  inkling  at 
all  that  in  these  qualities  resided  anything  to 
boast  of.  For  my  part,  it  may  be  confessed  at 
once,  that  I  would  rather  sit  by  pretty  Prudence 
Wheble  and  hear  her  pound  through  "  The  Bat- 
tle of  Prague,"  or  strum  the  trite  arpeggios  of 
"  The  Maiden's  Prayer  "  on  her  tinkly  old  cabi- 
net piano,  than  listen  to  a  showy  "  operatic  fan- 
tasia "  in  self-conscious  drawing-rooms  farther 
south,  whose  tight-laced  mistresses  would  have 
sniggered  at  her  plump  fingers  and  her  honest 
red  elbows. 

"  I  like  the  smell  of  a  cigar,"  said  Mrs. 
Wheble,  not  in  tolerance,  but  with  obvious  rel- 
ish. "  A  good  cigar :  nothink  smells  nicer." 

"  I  fancy  these  smokes  are  not  bad,"  said 
Peters,  with  a  modest  air  of  connoisseurship, 
as  he  looked  at  the  lighted  tip  of  the  one  he  was 
smoking.  "  Not  the  best,  of  course.  I  don't 
hold  with  extravagance;  but  good  enough." 

"  Cigars  are  very  expensive,  aren't  they, 
father?"  enquired  Prudence. 

"Lord,  yes!"  said  Mr.  Wheble.  "Why, 
some  breeds  are  fourpence  or  sixpence  a  time. 
There's  lots  of  people  in  London  smokes  four- 
penny  cigars  all  day  long." 


BORLASE   &   SON  67 

Mr.  Peters  smiled  the  smile  of  superior 
knowledge.  "  Plenty  of  'em,"  he  said,  "  and 
more  too.  Do  you  know  what  my  governor 
pays  for  his  cigars?  Four  pounds  fifteen  a  hun- 
dred— close  on  a  bob  a  time.  If  you  bought 
'em  at  the  ?bacca  shop,  I  reckon  they  would  be 
a  bob." 

"  They  must  be  something  very  choice,  I 
reckon,"  said  Mrs.  Wheble. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Peters.  "  He  left  one 
on  my  desk  one  day,  being  called  away  as  he  was 
going  to  light  it  up,  and  forgot  it.  I  let  it  lay 
there  for  a  day  or  two,  in  case  he  should  remem- 
ber it.  Then  I  took  it  home  and  smoked  it. 
Of  course  it  was  rather  classy:  but  for  my  part 
I've  often  smoked  a  threepenny  that  wasn't  so 
much  worse.  And  ninety-five  bob  a  hundred — 
think  of  the  price !  " 

"  I  call  it  almost  sinful,"  said  Mr.  Wheble 
vaguely ;  "  but  there,  your  governor  must  have 
stacks  of  money,  Mr.  Peters." 

"  Thousands,  literally,"  said  Mr.  Peters. 

"  There  you  are,"  said  Tom,  the  discontented 
brother,  who  read  Reynolds'  religiously  every 
Sunday.  "  These  chaps  make  piles  of  oof  out 
of  us  fellowrs,  and  what  do  they  do  with  it? 
Spend  it  in  ninepenny  smokes,  while  we  live 
in " 

"  Squoller !  "  said  Mr.  Wheble,  and  everybody 
laughed  (Tom's  theories  being  a  family  jest  of 
good  and  ancient  standing).  "  Squoller,"  he 
repeated.  "  Look  around  you  and  what  do  you 
see?  Squoller!"  Everyone  laughed  again — 


68  BORLASE   &   SON 

Tom  included.  "  Wile  Peters's  Gov.  wollers  in 
luxury  and  shilling  smokes,"  concluded  the 
father. 

"What  sort  of  a  looking  man  is  he?"  in- 
quired Prudence,  with  a  girl's  interest  in  that 
element  of  the  question. 

"  Oh,  he's  good-looking,"  said  Peters  criti- 
cally. "  Handsome,  I  should  call  him.  And 
dignified,  fit  to  beat  the  band:  looks  a  Dook,  I 
always  say.  I  was  saying  to  Thurlow  only  the 
other  day :  '  There  isn't  a  man  in  the  House  o' 
Lords  to  beat  our  governor  for  looks,'  I  said. 
*  No,'  says  Thurlow,  '  nor  for  dignity  either.  I 
been  here,'  he  says, '  twenty  years/  he  says,  *  and 
never  seen  anyone  take  a  liberty  with  him.  You 
couldn't  do  it  if  you  tried.  He  don't  need  to  say 
to  you,  "  This  isn't  the  cheese,"  about  anything. 
You  know  it  for  yourself,  the  moment  he  looks 
at  you.'  And  I'll  tell  you  another  thing  Thur- 
low said  to  me,"  Mr.  Peters  went  on,  looking 
round  the  table.  "  '  If  you've  noticed,'  he  said, 
4  you  can't  tell  the  governor  a^banger.  If  you've 
made  a  mull  of  anything,  no  matter  how  good 
a  yarn  you  may  have  made  up  to  account  for  it, 
you  go  into  the  governor  with  it,  and  what  hap- 
pens ?  It  all  melts  out  of  you.  You  couldn't  tell 
him  a  lie.  Wen  you  face  that  eye  of  his,  it's  the 
truth  you've  got  to  tell,  and  nothing  else,  and 
you  couldn't  do  different.'  That's  what  Thur- 
low says :  and  it's  true,  too,"  Mr.  Peters  assever- 
ated. 

"That's  a  man  for  you,  eh,  mother?"  said 
Mr.  Wheble.  "  Does  you  good  to  meet  with 
a  man  like  that  nowadays." 


BORLASE   &   SON  69 

"  It  does,"  said  Mr.  Peters,  who  experienced 
a  sort  of  reflected  glory,  and  wanted  more  of  it. 
"  And  what  I  say  is  "  (he  paused  to  empty  his 
wine  glass,  and  his  voice  warmed  with  the  family 
fruitiness  of  the  beverage),  "  what  I  mean,  it's 
a  privilege  to  enjoy  the  confidence  of  a  man  like 
that." 

"  Aye,  that  it  must  be,"  said  Mr.  Wheble,  nod- 
ding approvingly.  "  Ah,  I  should  like  to  see 
him  once." 

"  It  isn't  everyone  that  can  do  that,"  said  Mr. 
Peters  sagely.  "  Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spen- 
der aren't  a  firm  to  stand  behind  a  counter  sellin' 
quires  o'  paper,  you  know."  (Peters's  employ- 
ers were  wholesale  stationers.)  "  He  sits  in 
his  room  and  takes  orders  for  hundreds  o' 
pounds'  worth  o'  stuff  by  telegraph." 

"  Fancy !  "  said  Prudence. 

"  I  never  saw  him  wrathy  but  once,"  contin- 
ued Mr.  Peters,  "and  then  he  wasn't  not  so  much 
waxy:  he  was  just  terrible!  There  is  no  other 
word  for  it.  It  wasn't  me,  thank  goodness.  It 
was  Lucraft.  He'd  forgotten  something — 
something  rather  important,  I  should  think.  It 
was  when  I  first  went  there,  and  I  didn't  rightly 
understand  what  it  was.  But,  any'ow,  Lucraft 
had  tried  to  hide  it  up,  and  Mr.  Douglas  twigged 
it.  He  came  out  and  asked  about  it:  and  just 
as  Thurlow  said  the  other  day,  Lucraft  had 
nothing  to  do  but  tell  the  truth.  '  And  why 
wasn't  I  told  of  it  at  once  ? '  the  governor  says 
(very  quietly  you  know — no  gas),  '  instead  of 
waiting  for  me  to  find  it  out?  I  don't  think 


70  BORLASE   &   SON 

my  criticism  is  so  severe,'  he  says,  '  that  anyone 
need  be  afraid  to  come  to  me  and  own  to  a  mis- 
take.' He  didn't  speak  another  word,  but  I 
tell  you,  there  wasn't  anyone  in  the  place  that 
didn't  quake  when  he  said  it.  It  wasn't  anything 
to  do  with  me:  /  hadn't  made  any  bull,  nor 
Thurlow  either;  but  I  could  see  Thurlow,  sit- 
ting with  his  eyes  down  on  his  book,  looking 
as  if  he  thought  the  lightning  might  hit  him 
next.  But  half  an  hour  afterwards  Mr.  Douglas 
called  to  Lucraft  for  something  or  other,  and 
spoke  just  as  usual:  he  didn't  save  it  up  for 
him  a  particle.  But  it  taught  me  a  lesson,  I 
can  tell  you !  " 

The  conversation  broke  up  here,  Mrs.  Wheble 
passing  oranges  and  nuts.  Soon  came  tea — in 
the  kitchen  again — with  one  of  the  hostess's 
famous  plum  cakes  (which  are  memorable  eat- 
ing, as  I,  who  tell  you,  know),  crumpets  oozing 
golden  butter,  mixed  biscuits,  brown  "  parkins," 
crystallised  fruits,  and  toasted  buns;  and  with 
the  miraculous  appetites  which  Christmas  some- 
how seems  to  bring  with  it,  everyone  began  to 
eat  afresh.  The  meal  was  one  to  increase  a 
beholder's  respect  for  the  human  stomach.  The 
children,  in  particular,  strove  redoubtably,  and 
had  room  still  for  almonds  and  raisins  after  tea, 
when  the  parlour  table  was  cleared  for  cards,  a 
diversion  reprehended  by  the  Whebles  on  ordi- 
nary occasions,  but  permitted  always  at  Christ- 
mas-tide. The  stakes  were  Barcelona  nuts. 


CHAPTER   V 
NEW  YEAR'S  EVE 

ON  New  Year's  Eve  following  these  Christ- 
mas festivities,  Mr.  Peters  and  his  fellow  clerks 
at  Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spender's  "  stayed 
late  "  in  a  body.  Mr.  Schneider,  the  fussy  Ger- 
man book-keeper,  had  adorned  this  proceeding. 
He  was  a  ruddy-faced  individual,  with  a  huge, 
overhanging  moustache,  a  disproportionate  ab- 
domen, and  a  leaf-shaped  scar  across  his  right 
cheek,  apparently  caused  by  a  burn  at  some 
remote  period.  A  nervous  man,  he  hated  to 
have  the  large,  lonely  office  to  lock  up  by  him- 
self: he  had  heard  dark  and  vague  stories  of 
robbers  who  lurk  in  a  building  all  day  to  take 
valuable  lives  at  night.  "  It  would  be  a  too- 
serious  thing  for  the  firm  if  I  wass  addacked,"  he 
used  to  say ;  "  not  dat  dere  is  much  moneys  in 
der  safe,  ass  regards  dat  is  goncerned;  but  all 
der  books  would  be  in  confusion  if  I  wass  taken 
off."  Towards  the  end  of  the  year,  he  usually 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  his  account-books 
were  grievously  in  arrear;  and  having  fussed 
about  all  day  doing  nothing  (as  Lucraft,  a  mas- 
terful young  man  who  hated  the  German,  re- 
sentfully observed)  he  made  other  people  stay 
late  to  see  him  do  his  work  after  dark.  There 


72  BORLASE   &   SON 

was  not  even,  as  in  some  offices  known  to  Mr. 
Lucraft,  anything  "  hanging  to  it,"  the  fact  be- 
ing, as  this  critic  forgot  to  say,  that  everyone 
was  so  well  paid,  and  could  so  unfailingly  obtain 
a  holiday  or  other  indulgence  at  any  time,  as  to 
leave  no  possible  excuse  for  grumbling  at  a  few 
hours'  overtime. 

The  real  occasion  of  the  present  late  staying, 
however,  proved  to  be  of  a  different  character. 
The  book-keeper  made  hardly  a  pretence  of 
working.  He  went  out  "  to  get  a  cup  of  tea  " 
about  half-past  five,  as  soon  as  Mr.  Douglas 
had  gone  home,  and  returned  smelling  of  whis- 
key, to  pull  out  a  huge  array  of  accounts  and 
letter-books,  and  fidget  over  them  until  the 
others  came  back.  Thurlow,  the  second  clerk, 
had  "  met  him  out "  by  secret  arrangement : 
Lucraft  and  Peters  having  "  Tommy-dodded 
for  teas  "  (I  quote  Mr.  Lucraft's  technicality), 
returned  together,  and,  when  they  had  simi- 
larly made  a  show  of  doing  something,  they 
sate  side  by  side,  nudging  each  other,  talking 
in  whispers  and  glancing  at  the  other  two. 

Thurlow  was  to  them  the  object  of  some  dis- 
trust. He  ran  intermittently  and  by  outward 
profession  (so  to  say)  with  these,  the  hares;  he 
hunted  covertly  with  the  hound,  Schneider:  so 
that  the  hares  mildly  disliked  and  the  hound 
despised  him.  He  was  a  puny  fellow,  with  dank 
black  hair  and  small  eyes  in  swollen  pink  lids, 
that  looked  somehow  as  if  he  might  have  worn 
a  poultice  on  them  all  night;  he  dressed  in  a 
shabby  morning-coat  suit  and  a  turn-down  col- 


BORLASE   &   SON  73 

lar ;  had  a  tiny  brown  moustache  cut  very  short ; 
knew  a  great  deal  more  about  the  clerical  part 
of  business  than  anyone  else,  including  Schnei- 
der, despite  the  latter's  paraded  secrecy  about 
the  "  dead  "  ledger,  and  received  a  salary  far 
in  excess  of  his  real  worth,  in  consideration  of 
long  service  and  a  large  family. 

"  Let's  see  one  of  those  smokes  you  won, 
Peters,"  said  Lucraft  presently.  Having  been 
a  loser  in  the  same  raffle,  he  was  not  inclined  to 
let  Peters  keep  all  the  spoil  to  himself,  as  the 
latter  providently  wished. 

"  You  aren't  going  to  smoke,  are  you  ?  "  in- 
quired Peters,  cautiously. 

"  I  am,  though,"  said  Lucraft.  "  It's  after 
office  hours,  and  Thurlow  says  that  old  Schnei- 
der never  says  anything  if  he  lights  a  pipe  when 
they  stay  together." 

"  Oh,  Thurlow!  "  said  Mr.  Peters.  "  What  I 
mean — you  know  what  Thurlow  is — very  brave 
when  Schneider's  back  is  turned,  but  sings  a 
different  song  when  he's  on  the  job." 

"  Quite  so,"  said  Lucraft,  the  wily.  "  But  I'm 
going  to  show  you  how  to  work  it.  Have  you 
got  the  smokes  on  you?  " 

"  Some  of  'em,"  said  Peters,  producing  three 
in  an  envelope. 

"Hand  'em  over,"  said  Lucraft.  "  H'm  " 
(examining  them  critically  and  picking  out  one, 
of  which  the  wrapping-leaf  had  been  broken  in 
Peters's  pocket).  "  One  apiece.  One  of  'em's 
a  corpse.  We'll  give  that  to  Thullo.  Now 
watch  the  oracle." 


74  BORLASE   &   SON 

Schneider  was  behind  the  safe,  in  a  distant 
corner  of  the  office,  diving  into  the  pocket  of 
his  overcoat,  where  he  carried  a  flask,  occasion- 
ally resorted  to.  Lucraft  whistled  softly,  and  re- 
ceiving no  response  from  Thurlow,  went  coolly 
up  to  him  and  offering  the  envelope  with  the 
butt  of  the  damaged  cigar  slightly  in  advance 
of  the  others,  forced  it  as  a  conjurer  forces  a 
card.  He  was,  indeed,  a  neat  amateur  conjurer 
himself,  and  frequently  diverted  Peters  and 
Thurlow  with  feats  of  sleight  of  hand  during 
the  leisure  which,  by  a  skilful  abstinence  from 
undue  exertion,  he  had  secured  to  everyone  in 
office  hours. 

Mr.  Thurlow  took  the  cigar,  nervously  glanc- 
ing in  the  direction  of  Mr.  Schneider,  still  in- 
visible. A  subdued  gurgle  came  from  behind 
the  safe.  Thurlow  unbuttoned  his  coat  to  get 
at  his  inside  pocket;  but  Lucraft,  who  had 
thoughtfully  foreseen  this,  had  no  intention  of 
having  the  cigar  carried  away.  He  struck  a 
match  on  his  trousers  and  handed  it  to  Thur- 
low, promptly  returning  to  his  own  desk,  and 
leaving  his  colleague  with  no  alternative  but  to 
apply  the  light  to  his  cigar  end.  Peters,  who 
was  not  without  a  sense  of  humour,  giggled 
hysterically.  Lucraft  punched  him  gently  in 
the  short  ribs,  and  gave  him  one  of  the  remain- 
ing cigars,  holding  up,  however,  a  warning 
ringer. 

Immediately  afterwards  the  book-keeper 
emerged  from  the  corner,  pulling  down  his 
moustache.  Rather  curiously,  for  a  German,  he 


BORLASE  &  SON  75 

was  a  non-smoker,  and  the  first  sight  which  met 
his  eye,  precisely  as  Lucraft  had  intended,  was 
Thurlow  timidly  lighting  a  cigar.  The  others 
covertly  watched  the  effect  of  this,  and  when  it 
became  clear  that  the  proceeding  was  to  be 
tolerated,  Lucraft  passed  the  matches  to  Peters. 
He  lit  his  own  cigar  last. 

Mr.  Schneider  took  no  notice  of  what  had 
happened.  He  got  up  on  his  stool,  chose  a  pen 
and  wiped  it  on  his  coat-tail;  took  down  a  ruler 
and  ran  it  through  his  hands,  put  both  down 
and  turned  a  leaf  of  the  ledger  before  him ;  then 
stepped  down  and  walked  with  short  steps  to 
the  end  of  the  office  and  back,  twisting  his 
hands  nervously  together.  Lucraft,  an  admir- 
able mimic,  was  in  the  habit  of  rendering  this 
proceeding  to  the  life,  when  "  the  old  man  " 
(as  the  clerks  called  Schneider)  had  gone  to  the 
bank.  It  was  indeed  Lucraft's  excellent  imita- 
tion, his  well-observed  selection  of  the  German's 
odd  phrases — "  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,"  "  As 
regards  dat  is  concerned"  and  so  forth — that 
Mr.  Peters  had  on  Christmas  Day  reproduced, 
rather  than  Mr.  Schneider's  own  manner. 

Presently  the  book-keeper,  by  a  gesture  called 
the  other  three  around  him,  and  seated  on  the 
edge  of  his  stool,  fidgetting  nervously  with 
everything  within  reach,  began  to  talk.  He  de- 
tested, and  was  detested,  by  everyone  in  the 
place.  Mr.  Douglas,  the  only  active  partner  in 
the  firm,  is  included  in  this  remark,  though  the 
reserve  of  the  principal's  manners  never  indicated 


76  BORLASE   &   SON 

a  personal  feeling  that  could  in  the  least  suggest 
a  special  emotion  towards  any  of  his  staff. 

Mr.  Schneider,  on  the  other  hand,  made  a 
great  show  of  regard  for  everyone.  Especially 
of  the  "  firm's  interest "  and  his  zeal  for  it  did 
he  constantly  talk,  whenever  he  could  get  the 
chance.  Over  the  clerks  he  exercised  a  vacil- 
lating authority,  depreciated  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  constantly  expecting  them  to  sympathise 
with  himself  for  the  supposed  neglect  of  the 
principal,  and  putting  on  an  air  of  "  standing 
solid  "  with  them  against  innovations  supposed 
to  be  injurious  to  the  staff.  He  had  (for  ex- 
ample) fussed  with  everyone  over  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  typewriter,  and  the  young  woman  who 
worked  it  in  a  room  specially  fitted  up  for  her, 
"  put  aside  from  all  off  us,  chentlemen,"  said 
Schneider ;  "  an'  mark  my  vords,  to  be  a  spy. 
/  haff  peen  in  der  place  all  dese  years,  and  we 
haf  to  work  in  the  open  office:  ass  soon  as  dis 
young  voman  coom,  she  is  blaced  in  a  room 
mit  herself  alone.  I  dell  you,  I  shall  make  some 
rebresentations  dot  de  governor  gannot  icknore, 
and  you  will  supbort  me !  "  Of  course,  nothing 
whatever  came  of  this. 

On  the  present  occasion  he  was  inflated  with 
a  nervous  self-importance  equally  futile. 

"  Veil,  chentlemen,"  he  began,  "  vot  you 
t'ink  off  dis  last  moof  from  der  governor?  Vot? 
You  hain'd  even  hearn  off  it?  Aboud  his  son, 
I  mean." 

"  Oh,  about  his  son  coming  into  the  office? 
Yes,"  said  Thurlow  (who  had  had  the  whole 


BORLASE  &   SON  77 

thing  over  before  in  a  "  private  bar  "  with  the 
book-keeper  at  what  was  euphemistically  known 
as  tea-time). 

"  What  about  it,  Mr.  Schneider?  "  asked  Lu- 
craft,  puffing  his  cigar. 

"  Wod  aboud  it,  Mister  Lugraft  ?  Well,  wod 
you  t'ink  aboud  it?  Do  you  like  it?  Do  you 
t'ink  it  iss  a  goot  t'ing  for  all  of  us  ?  " 

"  Is  it  either  good  or  bad  ?  "  asked  Lucraft, 
judicially. 

"Goot?  Bad?  Veil,  wot  you  t'ink?  You 
vill  'ardly  belief  me,  chentlemen:  but  it  is  der 
fact  vot  I  tell  you.  I  am  der  book-keeper.  I 
keep  der  dead  ledger,  vot's  got  all  der  brivate 
aggounds  in  him :  all  der  gonfidential  aggounds 
dot  no  one  understand  but  mineself:  vot  der 
governor  'imself  couldn't  do  mitout  me:  and  I 
wass  nefer  told  von  vord  aboud  dis  t'ing.  Der 
governor  haf  said  to  me,  '  On  der  day  off  der 
New  Year  I  brings  my  son  inter  der  office.' 
Finish !  Dat's  all !  Vot  you  t'ink  ?  " 

"  Rough,  don't  you  know,"  said  Thurlow, 
with  exaggerated  concern.  "  That's  what  it  is. 
What  sort  of  consideration  does  it  show,  eh,  you 
fellows?" 

"  More  und  more,"  pursued  the  book-keeper. 
"  Somet'ing  vorse  as  dat.  Mister  Beters,  vill 
you  look  inter  der  room  from  der  typewriter  unt 
see  dat  Miss  Chippendale  haf  gone  'ome?  " 

"  It's  all  right,  Mr.  Schneider,"  said  Lucraft. 
"  I  saw  her  go." 

"  Nefer  mindt.  Go  un J  look ;  she  might  haf 
coom  back  und  listen.  Vait  a  minute.  I  go 
mineself." 


78  BORLASE  &   SON 

He  toddled  off,  with  his  queer,  short  step. 
They  saw  him  pass  into  the  room  and  turn  up 
the  light,  looking  all  over  the  table,  and  pulling 
out  the  drawers  beneath  it.  The  door  swung  to 
behind  him.  Lucraft  instantly  assumed  the  ges- 
ture and  attitude  of  his  absent  chief. 

"  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  chentlemen,  as  re- 
garts  dat  is  goncerned,"  he  said,  brisking  up  his 
moustache  with  his  hands.  "  How  do  you  like 
dese  cigars?  Mister  T'urlow,  vot  you  t'ink  of 
Meester  Beters's  vinnings,  py  gootness?" 

"  Mine  won't  burn,"  said  Thurlow,  looking 
at  the  cold  ash. 

"  Wrap  a  cigarette  paper  round  it,"  said 
Peters.  Lucraft,  with  a  cautious  eye  on  the 
door,  mimicked  the  book-keeper's  stealthy  tod- 
dle to  the  safe,  and  uttered  an  imitative  gurgle 
exactly  like  the  noise  of  his  flask.  Then  he 
returned  to  his  companions,  again  pretending  to 
adjust  his  moustache,  after  the  manner  of  Mr. 
Schneider.  "  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  chentle- 
men," he  resumed,  "  do  you  know  vot  is  com- 
ing? Mr.  Schneider's  position  is  being  oonter- 
mined.  I'll  bet  you  drinks  that  the  old  man's 
position  is  being  undermined,"  he  concluded, 
resuming  his  natural  English.  "Is  it  a  go?  " 

Before  the  others  could  reply  the  door  opened 
and  the  German  rejoined  them. 

"  She  is  not  dare :  I  choost  dook  a  look  rount 
to  see  if  dere  vass  anyt'ing  else  being  plotted 
behint  my  pack,"  he  said.  "  Der  governor  make 
all  sorts  of  plans,  ir.xd  say  nodings  to  me:  und 
in  six  mont's'  time  I  haf  to  make  my  books  all 


BORLASE  &   SON  79 

ofer  again,  because  he  ain't  told  me  vot  he  done. 
Dis  very  day,  chentlemen,  if  you  pelief  me,  I 
go  into  der  room  of  der  typeswriter  young 
woman,  and  I  say  to  her,  '  Miss  Chippendale,  I 
suppose  you  vill  like  to  know  dot  der  son  from 
Mr.  Douglas  wass  coming  inter  der  office  ? ' 
Vot  you  t'ink  she  say  to  me,  chentlemen?" 

"  Haven't  a  notion,"  said  Lucraft. 

"  She  say,  '  Oh,  wass  dat  all,  Mr.  Schneider? 
I  t'ought  eferyone  known  dat  a  mont'  ago ! ' 
Dere,  chentlemen.  Und  I  am  der  book-keeper. 
I  haf  der  dead  ledger,  und  der  gombination  of 
der  safe,  und  I  make  der  aggounds  from  der 
firm,  vot  no  one  oonderstand  but  mineself — vot 
der  gofernor  himself  don'd  oonderstand.  Und 
dis  is  der  typeswriter  young  woman,  vot  peen 
here  one  and  a  half  year  und  write  vot  she  is 
told  from  der  gofernor,  und  she  say,  '  I  haf 
known  it  for  a  mont'.' ' 

"  Bloomin'  rough,  ain't  it?"  said  Thurlow, 
with  a  jackal-like  glance  towards  the  others. 

"  Vot  you  t'ink  vill  happen,  ven  dis  son  from 
der  gofernor  coom  in  here  ?  Shall  I  gif  oop  my 
books?  Vot  shall  I  do?  How  can  I  do  my 
work — my  work  vot  no  one  in  der  place  oonder- 
stand but  mineself?  Zuppose  dis  young  man 
come  and  want  to  open  my  dead  ledger  and  read 
my  aggounds,  vot  is  gonfidential.  If  I  say  to 
him,  *  You  must  not  tooch  dose  books,  Mister 
Douglas,  Junior,'  von't  he  tell  me,  '  I  am  der 
son  from  der  gofernor '  ?  Und  vot  vork  shall  I 
gif  him  to  do?  Who  goes  away  to  make  room 
for  dis  young  man?  Me?  Donnerwetter ! 


80  BORLASE   &   SON 

He  can  take  my  place  if  he  like.  I  tender  my 
resicknation — if  he  can  do  der  books.  I  tell  you 
vot  it  is,  chentlemen :  my  position  is  being  oondcr- 
m'med! "  (Lucraft  let  fall  a  ruler,  which  Peters 
scuffled  in  his  polite  haste  to  pick  up,  and 
hide  a  snigger.)  "  Yes,  chentlemen,"  pursued 
the  book-keeper,  "  my  position  is  oondermined : 
all  our  positions  is  being  oondermined.  Vot 
you  goin'  to  do  aboud  it?  " 

"  We  mustn't  stand  it ;  that's  what  I  say,  don't 
you  know,"  said  Thurlow,  with  an  indefinite 
stoutheartedness. 

"  Quite  right,"  said  Lucraft,  Socratically. 
"  We  mustn't.  But  the  question  is,  how  can 
we  help  it?  " 

"  Yes,  that's  the  point,"  said  Peters,  who  al- 
ways supported  Lucraft,  of  whom  he  was  a 
good  deal  in  awe.  "  What  I  mean,  how  can  we 
help  it?" 

"  Excuse  me,  chentlemen,"  said  Schneider, 
"  I  haf  lost  my  han'kerchief."  He  retired  be- 
hind the  safe  again,  and  the  faint  "  cluck  "  of 
the  flask  set  everyone  grinning.  Lucraft  raised 
a  corked  ink-pot  and  affected  to  drink  from  it 
with  a  great  relish. 

"  I  tells  you  vot  we  haf  to  do,"  said  the  book- 
keeper, hastily  rejoining  them  and  taking  from 
his  pocket  the  missing  handkerchief  in  order  to 
wipe  his  mouth.  "  We  must  gombine." 

"  Yes,  that's  it.  Combine,  don't  you  know," 
said  Thurlow. 

"  Yes,  but  what  I  mean —  "  Peters  began. 

Lucraft  trod  on  his  toe.    "  Shut  up,  you  Jug- 


BORLASE  &   SON  81 

gins,"  he  whispered.  Then  he  added  aloud, 
"  Quite  so,  sir.  Of  course  we  shall  all  be  ready 
to  follow  your  lead." 

This  was  not  at  all  what  Schneider  wanted. 
But  Lucraft  infinitely  preferred  to  egg  the  Ger- 
man on  into  some  indiscretion  rather  than  allow 
the  staff  to  be  led  into  compromising  itself. 
In  common  with  his  fellows,  he  had  a  lively 
sense  of  the  advantages  existing  in  the  office. 
If  only  Schneider  could  have  been  got  rid  of, 
the  place,  he  felt,  would  be  a  paradise :  and  one, 
moreover,  presenting  opportunities  of  advance- 
ment for  himself. 

"  We  must  gombine,"  repeated  the  book- 
keeper mysteriously,  fidgetting  afresh.  "  Ve 
are  all  in  der  same  schwim-boat,  und  der  teufel 
take  der  hindmost,  as  der  prophets  say.  Dis 
son  from  der  gofernor,  he  coom  in.  Very  veil. 
I  am  not  gonsulted.  I  can't  show  him  not'ing : 
I  haf  no  instructions,  isn't  it?  Mr.  T'urlow,  he 
haf  no  instructions  neider.  No  one  haf  no  in- 
structions to  show  him  not'ing.  Der  gofernor 
put  him  in  der  office.  Finish!  Isn't  it?  Best 
t'ing  is,  der  typeswriter  young  woman.  She 
haf  soom  instructions  I  suppose.  She  know  all 
about  it  a  mont'  ago.  All  right !  Der  best  t'ing 
iss  dot  Mr.  Douglas  Junior  sit  in  der  room  of 
der  typeswriter  young  woman  and  learn  to  play 
der  songs  mitout  vords  from  Mendelssohn  on 
der  typeswriter,  don't  it  ?  "  He  took  out  his 
gold  watch,  a  present  from  Mr.  Douglas  five 
years  ago.  "  My  A'mighty  Gott,  chentlemen,  it 
iss  nine  o'clock,  und  not'ing  done.  It  iss  too 
6 


82  BORLASE   &   SON 

late  to  do  anyt'ing  to-night.  Und  vot  iss  der 
goot  of  doing  anyt'ing  ven  all  our  positions  is 
oondermined  ?  Der  best  t'ing  is  dat  we  lock  up 
der  office,  und  den  we  go  und  take  a  drink  of 
whiskey  und  go  home." 

The  young  men,  willing  enough  to  be  re- 
leased, put  the  books  in  the  safe,  Peters  holding 
a  match  while  Schneider  turned  the  handle  of 
the  combination  lock  which  closed  it.  "  Vot's 
diss?  "  said  the  latter,  picking  up  a  paper  from 
the  floor.  "  Ach,  Himmel,  yes.  I  ought  to 
haf  drawn  on  dat  feller  a  bill  to-day.  Nefer 
mindt.  I  do  it  in  der  morning,  und  it  haf  to 
go  into  der  next  aggound.  We  haf  lost  a 
mont's  interest  derewith,  talking  aboud  dis  son 
from  der  gofernor.  Ha!  ha!  Dat's  der  first 
t'ing  he  do  for  der  firm:  he  lose  his  papa  a 
mont's  interest.  Dat's  aboud  all  he  do,  isn't  it? 
Come  on,  chentlemen;  help  me  put  out  der  gas 
and  lock  oop  der  place.  Mister  Peters,  vill  you 
put  der  key  in  der  lock  before  I  make  der  out- 
side gas  out?  T'ank  you.  Come  along,  chentle- 
men :  let  us  go  und  take  a  drink." 


CHAPTER   VI 

A   YOUNG   MAN   FROM    OXFORD 

AN  observer  unacquainted  with  the  manners 
and  characteristics  of  the  staff  might  have  pre- 
dicted for  Edmund  Douglas  somewhat  un- 
pleasant beginnings  in  his  father's  office.  A 
groundwork  of  suspicion  seemed  to  have  been 
prepared  for  him:  and  men  who  had  talked  as 
these  four  have  been  heard  to  talk  might  have 
been  expected  to  let  him  know  it.  But,  in  fact, 
they  trusted  each  other  too  little  to  act  together, 
even  if  they  had  not  stood  in  a  wholesome 
awe  of  their  employer;  and  the  vapourings 
with  which  Shneider  had  regaled  his  colleagues 
over-night  vanished  in  the  morning.  In  a  week 
"  young  Dug  "  (as  Lucraft  had  promptly  nick- 
named him  to  Peters)  was  fully  and  comfortably 
installed,  and  had  begun  to  feel  his  way  cau- 
tiously to  an  estimate  of  his  father's  clerks. 

He  was  disposed  to  like  Lucraft  better  than 
any  of  the  others,  justly  esteeming  him  the 
cleverest  man  in  the  place.  And  in  no  way  had 
Lucraft's  cleverness  been  better  employed  than 
in  his  careful  study  of  the  best  ground  to  take 
with  the  newcomer,  on  whom  he  contrived  to 
produce  an  impression  of  frankness,  humour 
and  good-fellowship,  seasoned  with  exactly  a 
proper  amount  of  deference  and  with  no  more. 


84  BORLASE   &   SON 

It  was  with  Lucraft  alone,  therefore,  that  young 
Douglas  was  conscious  of  the  dawn  of  an  emo- 
tion that  might  become  friendship ;  and  this  was 
exactly  what  Lucraft  desired.  Schneider,  with 
the  same  object — for  he  was  capable  of  grumb- 
ling at  the  young  man's  advent  while  still  en- 
deavouring to  insinuate  himself  into  his  confi- 
dence— blundered  at  the  outset.  Lucraft  notedt 
with  the  amused  content  of  a  master  in  tact,  his 
ludicrous  blending  of  patronage  and  servility. 
Thurlow  was  too  openly  obsequious  to  be 
treated  otherwise  than  as  (in  an  apt  phrase  of 
Mr.  Yellowplush)  "  a  well-behaivd  munky." 
Peters  was  a  nonentity.  He  merely  tried  to  in- 
gratiate himself  with  Edmund  by  an  over-acted 
show  of  zeal  for  the  firm.  With  a  little  guidance 
from  Lucraft  he  might  have  done  better:  but 
Lucraft  had  no  idea  of  abiding  a  rival  near  his 
throne;  he  scented  advantages  for  himself  in 
Edmund's  presence  which  he  had  no  intention 
whatever  of  sharing  with  anyone  else. 

Only  in  one  way — and  on  the  first  morning 
of  the  latter's  entry  upon  the  scene — did  Peters 
profit  by  his  colleague's  astuteness.  The  custom 
of  the  office  was  for  the  clerks  to  arrive  some- 
where between  nine  and  ten.  The  nominal  office 
hour  was  nine.  Mr.  Douglas  was  never  seen 
before  eleven.  Schneider  usually  came  in  at 
about  ten  o'clock,  and  no  one  was  considered 
late  who  arrived  before  him. 

As  Lucraft  and  Peters  bade  each  other  "  good 
night "  on  New  Year's  Eve,  the  former  re- 
marked : 


85 

"  Better  turn  up  at  nine  to-morrow,  Pete.  It's 
on  the  cards  that  the  Gov.  will  come  in  on  the 
stroke,  by  way  of  teaching  the  young  idea.  It 
won't  do  us  any  harm  if  we  are  found  there." 
He  had  wit  to  perceive  that  to  be  himself  the 
only  punctual  man  in  the  office — to  have  ap- 
peared earlier  than  his  junior — would  exhibit 
too  great  an  effect  of  artifice:  he  was  at  pains 
therefore  to  secure  Peters's  early  arrival  in  his 
own  support. 

The  event  justified  his  intuitions :  Mr.  Doug- 
las, black-bearded,  tall,  and  of  heavy  build,  with 
Edmund,  tall,  too,  but  slimmer  and  of  a  fairer 
complexion,  walked  in  soon  after  nine,  to  find 
Lucraft  and  Peters  ostensibly  busy — in  reality 
on  the  thorns  of  apprehension :  for  having  been 
at  the  pains  to  get  up  early  themselves,  they 
would  have  been  disappointed  had  their  col- 
leagues arrived  in  time  to  share  the  advantages 
of  their  distasteful  punctuality.  Thus  it  hap- 
pened that  Edmund  (whom  none  of  the  clerks 
had  ever  seen)  was  introduced  to  these  two  be- 
fore anyone  else:  and  that  the  nervous  Schnei- 
der toddled  up  an  hour  late,  to  find  all  the  letters 
opened  by  his  employer  instead  of  by  himself, 
and  a  message  left  for  him  with  Thurlow  (who 
came  in  at  half-past  nine,  as  usual)  that  Mr. 
Douglas  would  be  glad  to  see  him  on  his  arrival, 
in  order  to  introduce  him  to  Mr.  Edmund. 

For  this  ceremony  the  German  prepared  him- 
self by  a  whispered  colloquy  with  Thurlow,  ac- 
companied, as  Lucraft  maliciously  noted,  by 
glances  not  too  friendly  at  himself  and  Peters. 


86  BORLASE  &   SON 

"  You  must  haf  slept  bad  this  morning,  chentle- 
men,"  he  observed  viciously,  in  passing  them. 

"  No,  I  didn't ;  but  I  got  up  early,"  Lucraft 
replied  impudently.  Mr.  Peters,  lacking  his 
colleague's  readiness,  turned  rather  pink,  and 
said  nothing.  Mr.  Schneider  walked  off  in  the 
direction  of  the  private  room,  rubbing  his  palms 
on  the  seams  of  his  trousers,  ready  to  shake 
hands. 

The  only  member  of  the  staff  wholly  unper- 
turbed by  Edmund's  appearance  on  the  scene 
of  business  was  Miss  Chippendale,  the  type- 
writer girl.  She  was  in  her  room  before  any- 
one, as  usual :  she  never  had  occasion  to  remain 
behind  in  the  evening,  and  never  took  advan- 
tage of  the  opportunities  which  the  easy  dis- 
cipline of  the  establishment  allowed,  to  arrive 
late  in  the  morning. 

It  would  be  to  exaggerate  her  indifference, 
perhaps,  if  one  implied  that  she  felt  no  curiosity 
as  to  what  manner  of  man  young  Douglas  might 
prove  to  be:  and  she  would  have  been  less  than 
a  woman  to  be  unimpressed  by  his  appearance — 
his  crisply  curling  hair,  his  good  shoulders,  and 
well-grown  moustache.  For  Edmund  had  in- 
herited his  father's  good  looks,  and  something 
more  than  his  stature.  Oxford  had  put  its  stamp 
upon  him  too.  His  manner  was  distinctly 
"  good,"  if  a  little  inexperienced.  He  spoke 
with  a  marked  Oxford  accent. 

Mary  Chippendale  was  herself  a  woman  of 
not  quite  an  ordinary  type,  though  her  outward 
divergence  therefrom  was  as  much  a  matter  of 


BORLASE   &   SON  87 

dress  as  anything  else.  Short,  dark-haired, 
and  decidedly  pretty,  with  clever,  humourous 
eyes,  and  a  skin  like  a  brown  egg,  she  dressed 
in  a  taste  characteristic  of  her,  or  rather  (to  be 
quite  accurate)  of  a  quasi-artistic  coterie  to 
which  she  belonged.  Women  would  have 
thought  that  she  did  not  make  the  most  of  her- 
self :  and  certainly  her  loose  dress,  with  its  large 
low  collar,  flouted  the  vagaries  of  fashion.  Bor- 
lase's  customers  would  have  sneered  at  it.  She 
wore  no  stays,  on  principle  and  because  her 
spare  figure  did  not  require  them.  She  might, 
in  short,  have  been  conceived  as  posing  to  her- 
self as  rather  an  "  advanced  "  young  woman, 
and  certainly  she  did  not  esteem  herself  a  com- 
monplace one:  the  severity  of  her  costume,  and 
her  plainly-dressed,  fringeless  hair,  her  uncom- 
promising stride  as  she  briskly  entered  the  office 
every  day  with  her  Morning  Leader  (vade  mecum 
of  the  enlightened  proletariat)  under  her  arm,  all 
sufficiently  marked  that.  She  was  thirty,  and 
always  alluded  to  herself  as  a  "  woman,"  with 
a  sharp  resentment  against  anyone  who  treated 
her,  in  a  matter  of  business,  as  entitled  to  any 
more  indulgence  than  a  man;  considering  her- 
self, not  unjustly,  to  be  as  competent  as  any  man 
could  have  been  in  her  work. 

If  Edmund  managed  eventually  to  find  a 
place  for  himself,  and  to  put  himself  into  that 
place  without  rubbing  anyone  very  seriously  the 
wrong  way,  it  was  to  Lucraft  that  he  owed  this 
success.  He  accepted  instruction  good-tem- 
peredly,  and  did  whatever  work  came  to  him,  in 


88  BORLASE   &   SON 

a  way  which  left  no  room  for  anyone  to  deny 
that  he  did  it  with  intelligence.  Lucraft  steered 
him  very  skilfully  over  the  shallows  of  the 
Schneiderian  mind — for,  without  being  in  the 
least  fanatically  peace-loving,  he  providently  de- 
cided that  the  time  for  cataclysms  likely  to  bene- 
fit himself  could  only  arrive  when  the  young 
man  should  have  gained  enough  experience  in 
the  business  to  be  a  real  power  in  it.  By  judi- 
cious and  apparently  unintentional  hints,  there- 
fore, Edmund  Douglas  found  himself  warned  of 
Schneider's  foibles,  and,  profiting  by  the  pro- 
cess, took  care  (for  one  example)  to  give  that 
worthy  no  ground  for  complaint  that  his  sacred 
ledgers  had  been  invaded. 

To  say  this  is  not  to  say  that  he  did  not  com- 
mit blunders  of  taste  and  tact — he  would  have 
been  something  more  than  a  very  ordinary  and 
quite  sufficiently  self-approving  young  man 
from  Oxford  otherwise.  Thus,  he  consulted 
Lucraft  in  a  way  that  made  Schneider  wriggle 
with  jealousy,  and  often  carried  to  the  young 
man,  whom  he  liked,  difficulties  in  which  the 
book-keeper  would  have  been  a  good  deal  bet- 
ter satisfied  to  instruct  him.  This  aggravated 
the  aversions  existing  in  the  office:  if  Lucraft 
had  been  as  raw  as  himself  there  might  easily 
have  been  provoked  an  overt  explosion,  where, 
as  things  were,  Edmund's  preference  only 
caused  secret  heart-burnings  and  bickerings,  to 
which  the  tactician  had  no  objection  whatever. 

"  My  Gott,  Almighty  Gott,  T'urlow,"  said  the 
German  to  his  crony,  one  night  when  they 


BORLASE   &   SON  89 

stayed  late  together.  "  Dis  young  man,  he  make 
a  nice  hay  of  the  place,  isn't  it?  Dese  boys" 
(Lucraft  and  Peters,  gone  home,  were  thus  con- 
temptuously referred  to),  "  dese  boys  haf  such 
swelled  heads,  now  der  gofernor's  son  come  to 
play  mit  dem,  dat  dey  valk  out  off  der  place  der 
moment  der  clock  strikes  six  ass  if  dey  vass  der 
book-keeper,  bei  Gott !  " 

"  Just  the  same,"  said  Thurlow,  who  would 
have  liked  to  go  home  himself. 

"  Dey  valk  oud,  and  dey  don't  ask  any- 
one if  dere  vass  anyt'ing  else  to  be  done.  I 
'spect  dey  gone  to  talk  us  all  ofer,  und  see 
how  dey  can  oondermine  our  position.  I 
tell  you,  T'urlow,  it  vass  a  serious  t'ing  for 
you.  You  are  a  married  man:  you  haf  your 
children  you  ought  to  t'ink  aboud.  Vot  you 
let  your  position  be  oondermined  dat  way  for? 
You  know  it  is  a  serious  t'ing  for  you?  You 
are  different  as  me.  I  know  der  books;  der 
gofernor  know  very  well  he  can't  do  mitout  me. 
I  haf  said  to  him,  '  I  t'ink  I  resigns :  I  vant  to 
go  home  to  my  fatherland  und  my  people/  Der 
gofernor,  he  say,  *  Take  a  holiday,  Mister 
Schneider:  you  go  and  see  your  peoples  und 
you  coom  back,  und  I  ingrease  your  money ! ' 
Donnerwetter — I  don't  vant  my  money  in- 
greased;  vot  I  vant,  I  vant  ter  be  treated  mit 
der  proper  respect.  I  belief " — he  advanced 
this  idea  as  a  proposition  almost  incredible — "  I 
belief  dat  impudent  teufel  Lucraft  he  mock  me 
behint  my  pack !  " 

Thurlow,  who  was  as  ready  as  anyone  to 


90  BORLASE  &   SON 

laugh  at  Lucraft's  impersonations,  responded 
by  a  number  of  deprecating  nods  that  seemed 
to  stamp  as  only  too  likely  a  conjecture  that  (he 
implied)  he  was  quite  unable  either  to  approve 
or  to  deny. 

"  I  subbose,  ven  dey  get  home  at  night,  der 
gofernor  ask  his  son,  '  Veil,  vot  you  heard  to- 
day?' Isn't  it?"  pursued  the  book-keeper. 
"  Dere  isn't  anyt'ing  dat  go  on  dat  he  don't 
know  aboud.  In  der  old  times,  eferyone  was 
trusted :  ve  did  all  vot  ve  like.  Nowadays,  dere 
is  young  blut  in  der  office,  as  der  gofernor  say. 
Yes.  Yoost  t'ink  of  it.  I  haf  der  private  ledger ; 
und  dis  son  from  der  gofernor,  one  of  dese  days, 
he  say,  '  Father,  dat  ole  Schneider,  he  gets  old. 
Give  me  der  private  ledger,  father.'  Und  he 
get  it.  Finish !  " 

"  Hum !  Have  to  learn  it  first,"  said  Thurlow 
sympathetically,  as  if  a  ledger  were  a  sort  of 
arcanum  that  required  prayer  and  fasting  for  its 
proper  understanding. 

"  I  tell  you  vot,  T'urlow.  You  know  vot  I 
mean  ter  do?  "  pursued  the  book-keeper  darkly. 
"  No?  I  tell  you.  I  yoost  go  on  der  way  I 
was  aggustomed:  only  I  wrop  up  der  ledger  a 
leetle;  I  make  him  a  leetle  bit  dark,  eh?  I  am 
not  going  to  have  my  brains  suck  for  der  son 
from  der  gofernor,  no !  Isn't  it  ?  But  observe, 
I  go  on  der  vay  I  vas  aggustomed.  You  haf  seen 
der  gofernor's  son:  he  get  here — Gott  knows 
vot  time  he  get  here!  Perhaps  he  coom  back 
after  dinner  und  sleep  oonder  the  desk,  aren't 
it?  Veil,  I  coom  at  my  usual  time.  If  he  don't 


BORLASE   &   SON  91 

like  it,  he  can  tell  der  gofernor.  If  he  tell  me, 
'  Old  Schneider,  you  are  late/  you  know  vot 
I  shall  tell  him  ?  No  ?  '  Fery  well,  Mister 
Edmun' :  den  you  tells  der  gofernor.'  Finish ! 
Aren't  it?' 

"  Oh,  he  wouldn't  take  the  liberty !  "  said  the 
shocked  Thurlow,  who  had  himself  secretly 
taken  on  new  habits  of  punctuality.  The  Ger- 
man began  to  work  round  to  his  object,  which 
was  connected  with  precisely  this  point. 

"  I  subbose  dese  boys  of  ours — dey  crawl  inter 
der  gofernor's  favour,  ain't  it?"  he  said. 

"  How  d'y'  mean  ?  "  asked  Thurlow,  in  his 
amorphous,  ill-articulated  speech. 

"  Ach,  you  know  vot  I  mean.  Dey  make 
slaves  from  demselves.  Dey  turn  up  on  der 
morning  aboud  eight  o'clock,  in  case  der  gofer- 
nor's son  catch  them  late,  isn't  it?" 

"  I  don't  know.  How  should  /  know?  They 
always  came  before  me,  y'know,"  said  Thurlow, 
who  was  getting  uncomfortable.  "  I  don't  con- 
sider I'm  compelled  to  wait  outside  for  nine  to 
strike,  an'  rush  in,  y'know.  I'  been  here  twenty 
years,  man  and  boy.  I  should  think  I  can  be 
allowed  half  an  hour  in  the  morning." 

"Certainly.  Isn't  it?"  said  Schneider,  de- 
lighted. "  Der  same  t'ing  at  lunch  time.  I  t'ink 
you  cut  your  loonch  time  a  little  short,  T'ur- 
low,'  he  suggested  anxiously. 

"  I  didn't  mean  to,  if  I  did,"  said  Thurlow 
untruthfully.  His  customary  hour  and  a  half 
had,  in  fact,  been  cut  down  to  the  statutory 
sixty  minutes.  Edmund  had  a  way  of  pulling 


92  BORLASE   &   SON 

out  his  watch  when  Thurlow  came  back  which 
led  that  worthy,  after  an  experimental  mumble 
one  day  that  he  "  had  had  to  make  a  call,"  to 
reform  his  plan. 

"  I  don't  advise  you  to  do  it !  "  said  Schneider, 
forgetting  his  recent  warning  to  Thurlow  as  a 
husband  and  father.  "  Stand  oop  for  your  posi- 
tion! If  Lucraft  and  Peters  likes  to  coom  at 
nine  o'clock  der  morning,  all  right.  Dey  are  der 
juniors.  Der  gofernor  know  very  veil  who  is 
the  important  people  in  der  office  den.  If  he 
want  to  make  a  slafe-galley  off  der  place,  all 
right.  Finish !  You  und  me,  T'urlow,  we  don't 
stand  it,  isn't  it?" 

"  No  fear/  said  Thurlow  valorously.  Schnei- 
der, who  loved  much  beer  over-night,  equally 
hated  early  rising.  He  wavered,  besides,  be- 
tween a  desire  to  exhibit  his  own  importance  in 
the  eyes  of  the  other  clerks  by  coming  in  when 
he  chose,  and  a  secret  pusillanimity  which  in- 
clined him  to  curry  favour  by  improving  his 
habits.  The  incident  of  New  Year's  morning 
rankled  disagreeably  in  his  memory,  and  he 
feared  the  effect  upon  his  employer  of  the  con- 
trast between  his  own  tardiness  and  the  re- 
sourceful punctuality  of  his  fellows.  He  had,  of 
course,  no  confidence  whatsoever  in  Thurlow's 
protestations,  and  was  secretly  afraid  of  being 
the  only  man  to  keep  up  the  old  tradition.  He 
consequently  perpended  the  matter  all  the  even- 
ing, when  he  reached  home,  and  eventually 
sought  the  confidence  of  a  compatriot  who  lived 
in  the  same  boarding-house. 


BORLASE   &   SON  93 

"  If  you  think  Thurlow  is  playing  you  a 
trick,"  said  the  latter,  "  why  don't  you  go  down 
early  and  bowl  him  out?  " 

Schneider  considered  this  suggestion,  with 
the  result  that  when,  punctually  at  nine  next 
morning,  Edmund  joined  the  three  clerks,  he 
drew  Lucraft  out  of  the  hearing  of  Peters  and 
Thurlow  and  said : 

"  Did  you  see  Mr.  Schneider  outside?  " 

Lucraft  chuckled.  "  Yes,  rather !  "  he  said. 
"  But  he  didn't  see  me.  He  was  inside  the  door 
of  the  tobacconist's  opposite.  Where  did  you 
see  him  ?  " 

"  I  saw  him  there,  too,"  said  Edmund.  "  He 
seemed  to  me  to  be  hiding  from  someone.  What 
do  you  suppose  is  the  matter?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Lucraft,  "  unless  he 
wanted  to  see  what  time  you  came." 

"  H'm.  I  don't  know  that  it  is  any  business 
of  his,"  said  Edmund  stiffly.  "  I'm  always  here 
before  he  is :  and  if  he  wanted  to  know  he  could 
have  asked  me.  I  don't  like  being  spied  upon." 
And  he  went  downstairs  to  the  warehouse. 

Lucraft  took  his  place  beside  Peters.  "  Don't 
look  up,"  he  said,  with  a  covert  glance  at  Thur- 
low, who  sat  at  another  desk.  "  The  old  man 
is  outside,  watching  the  place.  Young  Dug 
twigged  him.  If  you  go  and  look  through  the 
blind,  you'll  see  for  yourself.  He's  just  inside 
the  doorway  of  the  'bacca  shop." 

Peters  went  cautiously  to  the  window  and 
came  back. 

"  He  isn't  there  now,"  he  whispered. 


94  BORLASE  &   SON 

"  Gone  to  get  a  liquor,  I  expect,  then,"  said 
Lucraft.  "  Don't  tell  Thurlow.  I  wonder  what 
damned  German  trick  he's  up  to  now?  I  beg 
pardon,  Miss  Chippendale  "  (to  the  typewriter 
girl,  who  had  come  from  her  room).  "  What 
did  you  say  ?  Mr.  Edmund  ?  He's  gone  down- 
stairs for  the  packing-book.  Can  I  do  any- 
thing?" 

"  No,  thanks,"  she  replied.  "  I  wanted  to  ask 
him  something,  that's  all,"  and  she  walked  away. 

Lucraft — and  this  is  notable,  for  he  was  popu- 
lar with  most  women — was  held  in  aversion  by 
her.  Perhaps  even  this  may  be  taken  as  a  com- 
pliment to  his  intelligence:  for  neither  Peters 
nor  Thurlow  had  enough  individuality  to  pro- 
duce upon  her  mind  any  effect  whatever.  "  Our 
lady  friend  is  quite  struck  on  young  Apollo," 
commented  Lucraft  with  a  grin :  "  he  was 
mashing  her  for  an  hour  yesterday  afternoon, 
Pete  " — an  aspersion  quite  unjustified,  as  Ed- 
mund had  merely  been  receiving,  in  conse- 
quence of  a  suggestion  from  his  father,  an  initial 
lesson  in  the  mysteries  of  shorthand. 

Mr.  Schneider  was  at  his  desk  on  the  follow- 
ing morning  before  anyone  else.  He  had  ex- 
hibited a  marked  coolness  towards  Thurlow  all 
day. 


CHAPTER   VII 

BUSINESS    DEVELOPMENTS 

IT  will  have  been  perceived,  among  the  fore- 
going trivialities,  that  Mr.  Lucraft  was  a  young 
man  of  considerable  parts.  He  combined  an 
intelligence  much  in  advance  of  his  education, 
with  craftiness  of  a  degree  which  almost  gave  it 
the  dignity  of  wisdom.  He  was  not  more  un- 
scrupulous and  untruthful  than  his  fellows: 
where  he  excelled  them  was  in  the  faultless  tact 
which  masked  these  defects,  giving  them  a  coun- 
tenance of  the  most  genial  bonhomie  and  can- 
dour. His  readiness,  his  good  looks,  his  pleasant 
and  even  fascinating  manners,  his  wit,  the  un- 
ending supply  of  his  good  stories  admirably 
told  (he  was  a  good-humoured  and  excruciating 
mimic,  a  jester  who  never  repeated  himself),  his 
juggling,  the  endless  things  he  knew  how  to 
make  out  of  paper,  pens,  penholders,  nutshells, 
or  apparently  any  material  which  came  to  hand, 
his  absolute  insusceptibility  to  boredom,  and  his 
manifest  enjoyment  of  every  moment  of  life, 
made  him  the  darling  of  children  and  idle  people 
of  all  sorts.  I  should  do  him  an  injustice,  sug- 
gesting that  all  his  amiable  characteristics  were 
artificial  or  were  insincere.  He  was  indeed  of 
an  excellent  humour,  and  loved  the  admiration 
and  liking  which  it  was  his  art  to  evoke.  See- 


96  BORLASE   &   SON 

ing  him  in  the  act  of  this  evocation,  watching 
the  frank  readiness  with  which  he  gave  away 
his  own  conjuring  tricks,  the  untiring  patience 
and  unfeigned  delight  with  which  he  taught 
them  to  others — well  aware  that  he  surrendered 
no  whit  of  his  own  preeminence  thereby — you 
would  not  have  dreamed  that  his  clever  tongue 
and  unfailing  readiness  stood  him  in  just  as  good 
stead,  when  he  found  occasion  to  browbeat  an 
opponent,  or  reduce  a  rival  to  silence  with 
words  that  were  able  to  provoke  tears  of  hu- 
miliation and  remorse,  as  Lucraft  presented  his 
own  side  of  a  dispute  in  which  altercation  the 
other  man,  lacking  his  voluble  speciousness,  had 
no  chance  of  presenting  his  perhaps  better  case. 
It  was,  however,  precisely  to  this  last  faculty 
that  Lucraft  owed  the  unquestioned  ascendancy 
which  he  enjoyed  over  his  fellow-clerks :  no  man 
alive  could  conceive  and  utter  such  bitter  things 
with  so  admirable  a  modesty.  But  his  fascina- 
tion was  such,  and  such  the  magnanimity  of  his 
willingness  to  forgive  and  forget  the  injuries  he 
had  yesterday  inflicted,  that  the  fear  by  which 
he  ruled  was  forgotten  under  the  cloak  of  affec- 
tion which  he  compelled  his  associates  to  throw 
over  it.  It  was  so  natural  to  him  to  charm,  that 
he  charmed  habitually,^  even  in  the  absence  of 
a  set  motive.  No  one  really  detested  him  but 
Miss  Chippendale. 

The  deliberate  purpose  of  which  he  was  so 
abundantly  capable  underlay  (as  has  been 
hinted)  his  attentions  to  young  Douglas;  it 
would  have  been  a  miracle — and  a  regrettable 


BORLASE  &   SON  97 

one,  after  all — if  Edmund's  inexperience  could 
have  resisted  such  maturity  of  fascination.  Only 
Lucraft's  moderation  allowed  this  preference  to 
be  kept  within  decent  and  uninvidious  bounds, 
excluding  almost  the  possibility  of  envy;  Lu- 
craft,  indeed,  contrived  a  most  excellently  judi- 
cious aspect  of  drawing  everyone  within  the 
circle  of  his  own  geniality,  and  of  Edmund's 
companionship.  The  establishment  of  a  general 
good  understanding  with  the  son  of  the  em- 
ployer could  not  but  be  advantageous  to  every- 
one. Lucraft,  in  his  good  time,  would  perfectly 
well  know  how  to  make  it  especially  so  to  him- 
self. 

The  only  member  of  the  staff  who  entered 
into  none  of  these  gatherings  was  meanwhile 
making  acquaintanceship  with  young  Douglas 
on  more  strictly  utilitarian  grounds.  Edmund 
(as  we  have  seen)  had  been  advised  by  his  father 
to  learn  shorthand  of  her. 

Mr.  Douglas  was  a  widower,  Edmund  his 
only  living  child.  Their  relation  had  always 
been  close:  they  shared  interests,  amusements, 
and  even  hobbies,  the  father  coveting  the  friend- 
ship of  his  boy,  the  son  delighted  with  the  com- 
panionship of  his  father.  The  latter  was  too 
wise  to  strain  the  bond ;  he  even  purposely  made 
it  a  rule,  by  dining  out,  to  leave  Edmund  to  him- 
self on  three  or  four  nights  a  week.  He  had 
been  so  long  lonely,  and  had  suffered  so  often, 
that  he  had  learned  almost  to  expect  disappoint- 
ment. The  wife  and  the  young  children  of  whom 
death  had  robbed  him;  the  friends  who  had 
7 


98  BORLASE   &   SON 

drifted  away;  the  tastes  that  had  somehow  left 
him,  too;  these  things,  in  their  going,  had 
given  him  a  grey,  imperturbable  wisdom  which 
was  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  cynicism, 
taking  rather  the  form  of  a  sweet  reasonableness 
which  had  forgotten  how  to  murmur  even  in  the 
presence  of  Fate's  most  bereaving  acts. 

Young  Douglas  had  accepted  with  avidity  the 
plan  of  shorthand-learning  his  father  proposed : 
and  his  enthusiasm  for  that  discouraging  study 
was  no  whit  cooled  by  the  fact  that  he  found 
Miss  Chippendale  an  uncompromisingly  critical 
instructor.  He  called  at  a  bookseller's  on  his 
way  to  town  one  morning  and  provided  himself 
with  the  whole  literature  on  the  subject,  and 
therewith  a  reporting  book,  a  fountain  pen  and 
a  lead  pencil  said  to  be  especially  suited  to  sten- 
ography. It  was  exactly  like  any  other  lead 
pencil;  but  there  was  nothing  else  the  matter 
with  it,  and  it  pleased  Edmund  just  as  much. 

Miss  Chippendale  received  his  first  request 
for  instruction  in  her  usual  matter-of-fact  style, 
and  set  him  to  work  on  the  uninspiring  study  of 
the  rudiments.  He  laboured  for  four  hours,  and 
then  left  her,  to  do  some  office  work.  Miss 
Chippendale  pecked  steadily  at  her  typewriter 
the  while,  exhibiting  none  of  Lucraft's  readiness 
to  beguile  the  hours  with  conversation.  Yet 
Edmund,  somehow,  found  her  good  company, 
and  early  learned  to  respect  her. 

Of  course  they  soon  began  to  talk — no  later, 
in  fact,  than  the  second  day  of  his  studies.  Ed- 
mund, with  a  sigh,  rose  from  a  couple  of  hours' 


BORLASE   &   SON  99 

drawing  of  characters  which  it  would  be  flatter- 
ing to  call  pot-hooks.  He  said : 

"  There !  I  fancy  I  can  draw  these  things  all 
right  now,  Miss  Chippendale." 

"Do  you?"  she  replied,  shutting  down  the 
carriage  of  her  machine  with  a  smart  click,  and 
examining  over  her  shoulder  the  book  which  he 
held  out.  She  neither  rose  nor  took  it  from  his 
hands. 

"Yes,  I  think  so,"  he  answered.  "Don't 
you?" 

"Well,  I'm  afraid  I  don't,"  she  replied  au- 
sterely, when  he  had  turned  several  laborious 
pages  for  her. 

"  What  is  wrong?  "  he  asked. 

She  took  the  book  and,  clearing  away  some 
papers,  laid  it  on  the  flap  of  her  small  table. 

"  Are  these  Rs  or  Chs? "  she  demanded, 
indicating  with  her  pencil  some  of  Edmund's 
monotonous  lines. 

"  They  are  Chs,"  he  reported,  after  consider- 
ation. 

"  H'm !  Well,  they're  not  nearly  steep 
enough,"  she  decided.  "And  what  are  these? 
Ysf  " 

"  Certainly." 

"  Well,  you  began  all  right.  But  look  what 
a  hook  you  began  to  give  them  at  the  end  of 
the  line.  And  look  how  they  curl  up." 

"  Does  that  matter  much?  " 

"  Of  course  it  matters,  Mr.  Douglas.  Every- 
thing matters.  No.  I  don't  think  you  draw 
these  things  '  all  right.'  " 


ioo  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  How  long  does  it  take  to  learn  shorthand, 
Miss  Chippendale?  "  he  asked  her  next,  ascend- 
ing to  generalities. 

"  It  depends  upon  the  learner,  Mr.  Douglas," 
she  replied  gravely. 

"  If  the  learner  sticks  at  it?  " 

"  If  the  learner — sticks  at  it — it  takes — "  She 
paused,  and  her  eyes  laughed. 

"  Well,  it  takes — "  He  paused  also,  smiling 
back.  He  perceived  that  he  was  being,  as  Lu- 
craft  might  have  expressed  it,  "  drawn." 

"  It  takes  a  longer  or  shorter  time,  according 
to  the  sticker."  Miss  Chippendale  concluded 
rather  priggishly,  but  it  was  impossible  to  re- 
sent her  good-humoured  insolence. 

"  In  my  case  how  long  will  it  take  me,  then?  " 
he  asked,  laughing,  however,  and  balancing 
himself  against  the  back  of  a  chair.  She  had 
very  pleasant  eyes. 

"  It  depends  upon  you,  in  your  case,"  she  re- 
peated obstinately. 

He  laughed  outright.  "  Really,  Miss  Chip- 
pendale— "  he  began.  Then :  "  Well,  put  it  in 
another  form.  How  long  did  it  take  you  to 
learn  shorthand?  " 

"  That  is  a  much  easier  question  to  answer," 
said  she.  .  "  It  took  me  about  eight  months  to 
learn  shorthand,  Mr.  Douglas:  but  then  I  had 
other  work  to  do  at  the  same  time,  and  I  had 
my  brother's  house  to  look  after." 

"  How  long  does  it  take  most  men  ?  Have 
you  taught  many  people  ?  " 

"  I  have  begun  to  teach  a  great  many  people." 


BORLASE   &   SON  101 

"  Well,  now — you're  fencing  with  me,  don't 
you  know,  Miss  Chippendale?  "  Edmund's  van- 
ity was  suffering  under  her  whip.  "  If  a  man 
gives,  say,  six  hours  a  day  to  it,  how  long  is  it 
before  he  can  '  report '  ?  That's  the  word,  isn't 
it?  "  he  inquired. 

"  It  is  a  word  often  used,"  Miss  Chippendale 
admitted  in  her  precise  way.  "  If  a  man  starts 
by  giving  six  hours  a  day  to  it,  he  generally 
learns  all  the  shorthand  he  will  ever  know  in 
about  a  fortnight."  She  laughed  outright  now 
— and  the  laugh  might  have  been  thought  an 
ill-natured  one,  if  her  eyes  had  been  less  kind. 
"  You  asked  me,"  she  reminded  him. 

"  In  other  words,  you  don't  believe  I  shall  go 
through  with  it,  eh?" 

"  Oh,  well,  Mr.  Douglas !  No,  I  didn't  in- 
tend to  say  so  at  all.  But  I  do  say  that  you 
are  less  likely  to  get  tired  of  the  subject  if  you 
put  on  a  little  less  steam  at  first.  It  can't  be 
called  fascinating :  you  may  have  observed  that." 

"  No.  But  it's  extraordinarily  philosophical 
— the  system,"  he  said. 

"  Ah,  you  have  noticed  that  already?  Really, 
I  have  hopes  of  you,"  she  conceded,  still  ban- 
tering. 

"  You  are  very  kind,  Miss  Chippendale." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  didn't  intend  to  make 
a  personal  remark.  Yes,  it  really  is  philosophi- 
cal. You  see  it  is  less  an  invention  than  an  evo- 
lution. All  sorts  of  improvements  and  altera- 
tions have  been  tested,  and  those  which  an- 
swered in  practice  were  incorporated  into  the 


102  BORLASE   &   SON 

system.  The  fit  things  survived.  But  there  will 
always  be  a  certain  amount  of  drudgery  at  the 
outset ;  you  can't  avoid  that.  There's  no  royal 
road  to  anything  worth  having,  don't  you 
think?  But  when  you  perceive  how  philo- 
sophical it  is,  you  have  really  done  a  great  deal 
to  lighten  your  task." 

"  To  sum  up  then,"  said  Edmund,  "  it  re- 
quires perseverance  mainly?  " 

"  Yes.  But  I  shouldn't  persevere  too  long  at 
a  time.  Two  hours  at  a  stretch  is  quite  long 
enough."  He  looked  at  his  watch,  and  she,  with 
an  air  of  dismissal,  lifted  the  typewriter  carriage 
again. 

Edmund  left  her,  and  went  out  to  talk  with 
Lucraft — a  relaxation  which  that  worthy  never 
discouraged. 

Lucraft,  Edmund  had  gathered,  did  not  ap- 
prove of  Miss  Chippendale.  You  are  not  to 
imagine  that  he  said  so — the  supposition  would 
be  a  libel  on  his  social  genius.  But  Edmund 
gathered  the  impression,  which  was  a  perfectly 
correct  one.  These  two  were  antipathetic.  The 
keynote  of  Mary  Chippendale's  character  was 
an  uncompromising  sincerity  and  an  instinctive 
abhorrence  of  sentimentalism.  Lucraft  was  both 
insincere  and  (as  one  divined),  sentimental. 
Neither  knew  very  much  of  the  other;  but  their 
intuitions  conflicted,  and  developed  a  mistrust 
which,  in  the  woman's  case  at  least,  had  grown 
into  actual  aversion.  What  Lucraft  thought  of 
Miss  Chippendale  he  did  not  tell  to  anyone,  hav- 
ing no  purpose  that  could  be  so  subserved.  Miss 


BORLASE   &   SON  103 

Chippendale's  estimate  of  Lucraft  was  only  con- 
fided to  her  favourite  brother,  and  to  him  less  as 
a  matter  of  psychological  interest  than  as  the 
personal  grievance  which  such  instinctive  aver- 
sions are  apt  to  grow  into.  "  I  detest  the  man," 
she  said. 

The  two  came  very  little  into  contact:  and 
yet  there  was  between  them  a  sort  of  covert, 
unconscious  antagonism.  Miss  Chippendale,  as 
soon  as  she  had  found  that  young  Douglas  was 
not  in  the  least  apt  to  patronise  or  condescend, 
abated  the  rigour  of  the  attitude  she  had  at  first 
instinctively  adopted,  for  she  was  not  a  young 
woman  who  readily  permitted  condescension. 
She  found,  later,  that  she  had  been  (as  she 
frankly  put  it  to  herself)  ridiculously  prejudiced ; 
and  in  further  self-examination  decided  that  the 
young  man's  frequentation  of  Lucraft's  com- 
pany had  been  the  cause.  The  woman's  natural 
requirement  of  a  scapegoat  thus  at  the  same 
time  fulfilled,  nothing  is  more  natural  than  that 
Miss  Chippendale  should  wish  to  counteract  an 
unwholesome  influence.  She  did  not  in  the  least 
perceive  (well,  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  her 
humour  had  its  limits)  that  the  tables  were 
hereby  turned,  and  it  was  she  who  was  implicitly 
patronising  Edmund.  Even  if  the  thought  had 
occurred  to  her,  she  would  have  dismissed  it  on 
the  excuse  of  her  own  greater  experience,  and 
of  duty.  The  duty  of  removing  a  man  from  an 
intimacy  which  she  personally  dislikes  renders 
every  woman  a  Spartan  mother  for  conscien- 
tiousness. 


104  BORLASE   &   SON 

It  ought  to  be  said,  however,  in  favour  of 
Miss  Chippendale,  that  this  conscientiousness 
entered  into  all  her  work.  To  her  it  would  have 
been  unbearable  to  accept  a  salary  and  not  do 
the  utmost  work,  and  the  best  work,  for  her 
employer  that  she  was  capable  of.  And  her  de- 
testation of  Lucraft  and  contempt  of  his  fellows 
arose  chiefly  from  an  ingrained  resentment  of 
hers:  she  had  quite  enough  acuteness  to  per- 
ceive that  they  thought  of  nothing  but  how  to 
get  as  much  money  for  as  little  work  as  pos- 
sible. It  would  be  expecting  too  much  of  her 
to  say  that  she  might  have  perceived  that 
the  upbringing  and  environment  of  all  of  them 
were  less  favourable  to  a  conscientious  view  of 
life  than  her  own. 

Lucraft,  in  his  disapproval  of  the  typewriting 
lady,  used  against  her  quite  the  most  formidable 
weapon  for  such  a  struggle.  With  the  most 
admirable  reserve  and  discretion  he  hinted  a 
general  contempt  for  stenography  as  a  study 
which  (he  conveyed)  Edmund  rather  conde- 
scended in  dabbling  with.  Useful,  of  course;  yes. 
Oh,  certainly  useful,  in  a  humble  way — as  an 
implement  to  be  used  by  underlings  to  save  the 
time  of  superior  people :  not  an  accomplishment 
in  any  sense.  And  he  passed  to  other  subjects. 

Just  about  this  time,  however,  the  opportuni- 
ties for  idle  conversation  began  to  be  restricted. 
Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spender  had  recently  dis- 
patched a  clerk  of  some  years'  standing  as  tra- 
veller abroad,  and  the  orders  (such  as  they  were) 
which  he  obtained,  and  the  voluminous  reports 


BORLASE   &   SON  105 

which  arrived  from  him  by  every  week's  mail, 
required  attention.  The  importation  of  this  new 
element  into  the  business  of  the  house  involved 
a  considerable  access  of  employment. 

Especially  Edmund  Douglas  found  plenty  to 
do.  With  work  to  his  hand,  and  the  early  zeal 
of  his  novitiate  cooling,  he  allowed  his  studies 
in  shorthand  to  suffer.  Miss  Chippendale 
smiled,  and  Lucraft  reticently  rejoiced.  Ed- 
mund, making  great  strides  in  practical  knowl- 
edge of  the  house's  interests,  laboured  strenu- 
ously therein.  The  new  department  enabled 
him  to  take  charge  of  something  without  dis- 
placing anyone;  and  the  others — who  were,  of 
course,  indirectly  affected  too  by  the  increase  of 
labour — had  no  desire  whatever  to  thwart  his 
anxiety  to  do  what  they  would  otherwise  have 
had  to  share  among  them;  an  unearned  incre- 
ment for  which  they  had  assuredly  no  taste. 

Lucraft,  therefore,  seemed  to  perceive  the 
stars  in  their  courses  righting  against  his  oppo- 
nent, of  whose  antagonism  he  was  subtly  aware. 
But  a  remark  which  he  let  casually  fall  a  week 
or  two  later  might  have  discouraged  him  by  its 
effects.  Something  had  been  said  by  Thurlow, 
who  had  a  typewritten  document  on  his  desk, 
on  the  advantages  of  the  process. 

"  Yes,  it  looks  well,"  Lucraft  admitted.  "  But 
of  course  the  great  merit  of  those  machines  is 
that  they  don't  need  any  intelligence  to  use 
them.  Any  fool  can  rattle  a  typewriter." 

"Yes?"  said  Edmund,  with  an  interrogative 
accent.  "  But  all  typists  are  not  fools,  for  all 
that.  And  I  suppose  there  is  good  work  and 


106  BORLASE   &   SON 

poor  work,  and  conscientious  work  and  lazy 
work,  in  typewriting,  like  anything  else." 

Growing  experience  of  his  father's  business 
had  taught  him  many  things :  of  which  one  was 
that  Mr.  Lucraft,  like  most  other  people  in  the 
office  of  Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spender,  would 
have  allowed  almost  anything  to  happen  rather 
than  over-exert  himself. 

As  a  couple  of  months  went  on,  Edmund's 
time  was  more  and  more  fully  occupied,  and 
he  found  less  leisure  for  conversation.  The 
growth  of  his  department,  indeed,  presently 
made  it  necessary  to  advertise  in  the  newspapers 
for  a  junior  clerk's  assistance;  the  staff  was 
growing.  "  The  fact  is,"  Mr.  Peters  explained 
to  Tom  and  Harry  Wheble,  with  whom,  to  his 
own  honour  and  glory,  he  was  fond  of  discuss- 
ing office  affairs,  "  the  fact  is  that  my  work  has 
grown  so  that  the  governor  couldn't  help  seeing 
it  was  too  much  for  me.  He's  going  to  get  a 
young  man  to  help  me."  Having  had,  since  the 
departure  of  the  other  lad,  to  fulfill  the  duties 
of  junior  clerk  and  factotum,  though  his  age  and 
experience  would  really  have  enabled  him  to 
take  a  higher  place  had  there  been  room,  Mr. 
Peters  found  his  own  dignity  considerably  en- 
hanced by  the  prospect  of  a  newcomer  to  rule 
over  and  order  about. 

"  Your  firm  is  more  considerate  than  most,  I 
must  say,"  said  Mr.  Thomas  Wheble,  with  a 
snort  of  general  disapproval. 

"  Well — what  I  mean,  you  know — they  know 
when  they're  well  served,"  replied  Mr.  Peters 
sagely. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

"  OUR   ANNUAL   SALE  " 

MEANWHILE — for  it  is  up  to  March  that  the 
events  narrated  in  the  last  chapter  have  brought 
us — Stanton  Borlase  had  experienced  for  nearly 
three  months  the  ways  and  customs  of  his  adop- 
tive parent. 

Mr.  Borlase  could  not  have  denied  the  lad's 
anxiety  to  approve  himself  worthy  of  his  pros- 
pects. When — as  happened  not  infrequently — 
Stanton's  zeal  led  him  into  error,  Mr.  Borlase 
was  rigorous,  and  even  severe  with  him.  Stanton, 
for  his  part,  learned  that  the  guardian  of  his  pov- 
erty was  a  benefactor  "  gey  ill  to  live  wi'." 
Lacking  all  the  experience  that  might  have 
shown  him  the  greatness  of  his  debt  for  even 
clothes  and  shelter  (to  say  nothing  of  nurture, 
education  and  upbringing),  he  had  the  unreas- 
onableness to  require  affection.  I  will  not  say 
that  he  was  unthankful:  the  duty  of  gratitude 
was  indeed  impressed  upon  him  in  every  accent 
of  his  patron's  voice.  Mr.  Borlase  could  hardly 
approach  the  Throne  before  or  after  eating  (as 
he  punctually  did)  without  an  inflection  which 
somehow  seemed  intended  to  remind  Stanton 
that  the  power  of  true  thankfulness  desiderated 
from  on  High  might  legitimately  have  a  mun 
dane  object  also.  The  reflection  was  perhaps 


io8  BORLASE   &   SON 

a  little  profane ;  but  other  most  unexceptionable 
expressions  have  before  now  been  known  to 
prove  unfortunate  in  their  evocations. 

Mr.  Borlase  was  conscious  of  no  change  in 
his  sentiments  towards  the  boy.  He  had  ex- 
pected— he  had  (he  felt)  a  right  to  expect — that 
Stanton  would  behave  well.  He  was  pleased 
with  him  for  so  behaving,  on  trial.  But,  the 
first  urbanities  of  his  new  relation  with  the  lad 
having  worn  off,  he  treated  him  austerely, 
though  he  liked  him  after  his  own  fashion,  and 
proposed  to  do  well  by  him.  Mr.  Borlase  was 
not  the  man  to  know  that  love  is  a  sweeter  emo- 
tion than  gratitude.  Stanton  was  not  old  enough 
to  have  learned  that  affection  often  lurks  in  very 
inclement  hiding  places. 

Thus  (as  often  happens),  while  the  benevo- 
lence of  Mr.  Borlase  lacked  some  of  its  deserved 
appreciation,  Stanton's  gratitude  had  taken  on 
the  aspect  of  a  duty  instead  of  an  emotion :  and 
youth  was  never  fanatically  hospitable  to  duty. 
The  keenness  of  his  moral  sense  had  been  some- 
what blunted,  by  this  time,  by  recurring  experi- 
ence of  that  insidious  entity,  "  the  custom  of  the 
trade."  Custom  of  the  trade  excused  any  and 
every  opportunity  for  unearned  profit;  and 
where  sophistical  argument  might  have  failed  to 
convince  Stanton  that  it  was  honest  and  proper 
to  take  advantage  of  other  people  for  the  bene- 
fit of  his  patron,  the  matter-of-fact  dismissal  of 
such  things  with  the  cant  plea  of  custom  in- 
evitably dulled  his  consciousness  of  them. 

He  was  increasingly  popular  in  the  shop,  and 


BORLASE  &   SON  109 

accommodated  himself  well  to  his  surroundings. 
Even  in  appearance  he  was  much  like  his  fel- 
lows, now  that  the  first  newness  of  his  Christmas 
clothes  had  worn  off,  and  his  elbows  shone  a 
little.  Always  pale  and  inclined  to  sallowness, 
the  scant,  gassy  air  of  the  shop,  and  the  late 
hours  of  work,  were  fast  giving  him  the  muddy, 
anaemic  face  of  a  London  lad.  His  superior 
feeding  did  him  little  good,  for  he  took  no  exer- 
cise, and  spent  such  hours  of  leisure  as  he  had 
in  reading. 

Herein  Wicksted  abetted  and  sometimes 
guided  him :  they  shared  a  magnificent  and  soul- 
ful misappreciation  of  the  inferior  graces  of 
literature.  They  had  also  grown  to  understand 
each  other  fairly  well,  and  Wicksted's  tacit  de- 
testation of  his  employer  had  been  divined,  with- 
out offence,  by  Stanton.  Naturally,  nothing 
was  said  on  the  subject;  but  Stanton,  too,  had 
grown  to  think  that  the  young  men  and  women 
in  the  shop  were  rather  shamefully  sweated.  He 
never,  perhaps,  reached  the  point  of  reprehend- 
ing the  sweater:  and,  besides,  it  was,  no  doubt, 
a  custom  of  the  trade.  Mr.  Borlase  was  of  so 
magnificent  an  unconsciousness;  his  airs  of  re- 
spectability and  benevolence  were  so  habitual 
and  ingrained,  and  the  Suburb  so  unhesitat- 
ingly accepted  him,  at  business,  at  the  Vestry, 
and  wherever  his  praised  public  spirit  made  him 
loudly  conspicuous,  at  his  own  valuation,  that  it 
would  have  needed  a  maturer  and  more  inde- 
pendent mind  than  his  adopted  son's  to  detect 
hypocrisy.  Indeed,  one  sometimes  doubts 


no  BORLASE   &   SON 

whether  even  Mr.  Borlase  realised  himself: 
there  is  no  humbug  so  unruffled  or  so  overpow- 
eringly  successful  as  your  unconscious  humbug. 
And  flattery,  of  which  the  suddenly  deceased 
Mrs.  Borlase  had  been  an  apt  and  generous  pur- 
veyor, is  able  to  dull  an  acuter  and  more  self- 
accusing  spirit  than  that  of  this  well-satisfied 
Guardian  of  the  Poor.  All  things  worked  to- 
gether to  make  Stanton,  aware  of  his  own  debt 
to  his  patron,  accept  that  patron  somewhat  at 
his  own  liberal  valuation.  Even  the  colossal 
humbug  of  the  spring  sale  gave  no  qualms;  in- 
deed, neither  Stanton  nor  anyone  else  had  much 
leisure  for  niceties  of  conscience.  The  business 
of  writing  new  and  higher  price-tickets  and  cor- 
recting them  in  red  ink  to  about  the  regular 
level ;  of  absorbing  and  correctly  disposing  of 
much  inferior  stock,  to  be  ingenuously  sold  off 
as  "  bargains  " ;  of  cutting  up  factitious  "  rem- 
nants "  from  piece-goods  that  had  not  gone  off 
well  (for  five  yards  and  three  inches  look  cheaper 
as  a  "  remnant — about  five  and  an  eighth — for 
three  and  fourpence  "  than  at  their  usual  price 
of  sevenpence  three-farthings  a  yard) ;  these 
things  employed  all  his  energies  for  many  days 
before  the  actual  "  rush  "  began.  And  the  glori- 
ous prosperity  of  the  three  sale-days  themselves, 
when  the  shop  was  full  from  nine  in  the  morn- 
ing until  ten  at  night,  and  even  the  early-closing 
custom  of  Thursdays  was  intermitted,  drove 
everything  else  out  of  his  head.  It  was  a  period 
of  quite  unique  discomfort,  and  made  several  of 
the  young  women  ill.  But  Borlase  &  Company 


BORLASE   &   SON  in 

"  took  "  an  enormous  amount  of  money,  and 
there  is  no  crown  without  its  cross. 

The  time  of  Easter  came  fortunately  that 
year.  It  fell  immediately  after  the  sale,  and 
many  thrifty  suburbans  took  the  bait  of  uncostly 
finery  which  Borlase  &  Company  had  prepared 
for  that  contingency.  Indeed,  chip  hats  sold 
so  well  on  the  second  day  that  Stanton  was  dis- 
patched in  hot  haste  after  lunch  to  the  ware- 
house of  a  German  firm  between  Aldersgate 
Street  and  what  he  found  to  be  called,  not  in 
vain,  Jewin  Street,  to  exhaust  their  stock  and 
demand  its  immediate  dispatch.  Returning,  he 
met  Mr.  Borlase  at  the  shop  door. 

"Got  'm?"  demanded  the  draper  in  a  low 
tone. 

"  They'll  be  here  in  half  an  hour,"  said  Stan- 
ton. 

"  Good !  "  said  his  guardian.    "  How  many?  " 

"  About  fifteen  dozen,  sir :  they'll  put  in  all 
they  have.  I  couldn't  get  the  extra  two  and  a 
half  per  cent,  for  cash  though."  (He  had,  as 
a  fact,  lacked  the  moral  courage  to  ask  for  it.) 

"  Oh,  all  right.  Don't  talk.  Get  to  work," 
said  Mr.  Borlase.  A  girl  called  him. 

"  Have  we  any  more  of  those  chip  hats  at 
eleven  three,  sir?"  she  asked. 

Her  customer  was  a  red-cheeked  servant-girl 
— far  better  off  in  health  and  happiness  than  the 
young  ladies  of  Borlase's,  if  they  had  but  known 
it.  She  looked  up  from  her  chair  for  Mr.  Bor- 
lase's reply. 

"  There  are  just  a  few  more,  I  think,  in  the 


112  BORLASE   &   SON 

warehouse,  miss,"  he  said,  speciously  address- 
ing the  servant,  "  unless  I  am  mistaken.  A 
young  lady  is  looking  for  them  now." 

"  I'm  rather  pushed  for  time,"  said  the  ser- 
vant, who  had  left  a  perambulator  outside, 
wherein  an  unregarded  infant,  supposed  to  be 
taking  the  air  of  Peckham  Rye,  was  endeavour- 
ing assiduously  to  choke  itself  with  the  bone 
"  comforter  "  attached  to  its  waist  by  a  string. 

"  I'm  afraid  they  are  rather  put  away,"  said 
Mr.  Borlase.  "  Our  stock  down  there  is  so 
enormous,  you  see.  E — normous!  If  you 
should  be  passing  again,  I'll  see  that  one  or  two 
are  reserved  for  you  to  choose  from." 

"  That'll  have  to  do,  I  suppose,"  said  the  girl, 
with  a  sniff.  Her  eye  wandered  round  the  shop. 
Mr.  Borlase  pulled  down  a  huge  feather  boa. 
"  Anything  in  this  line?  "  he  inquired.  "  We're 
letting  these  go  wonderfully  cheap,  what  we 
have  left  of  them.  They  may  be  all  gone  before 
you  get  back  again,  there's  such  a  run  on  'em." 
He  left  her  to  the  young  woman  at  the  counter, 
who  had  meantime  been  disposing  of  jet  trim- 
mings and  some  very  flamboyant  rooster-tails, 
known  in  the  trade  as  "  coque's  wings."  The 
feather  boas,  although  bought  at  an  incredibly 
low  rate  in  Jewin  Street  the  week  before,  had 
proved  rather  an  unhappy  investment,  and  Mr. 
Borlase  had  more  of  them  in  stock  than  he  liked. 
The  servant-girl  did  not  buy  one. 

The  whole  place  was  packed.  Women  stood 
in  patient  rows,  and  circulated  slowly  in  a  long 
queue  between  the  counters,  viewing  the  display 


BORLASE   &   SON  113 

of  sale  goods.  Every  available  space  was  cov- 
ered with  baskets,  to  display  as  many  different 
bargains  as  possible.  Nothing  adds  to  the  im- 
pression of  cheapness  more  than  to  mix  a  va- 
riety of  objects  and  label  them,  "  all  reduced  to 
three  pence  three-farthings,"  and  this  trick  was 
well  known  to,  and  liberally  practised  by,  Mr. 
Borlase.  The  opportunities  of  a  shoplifter  must 
have  been  great,  and  perhaps  some  pilfering 
occurred.  The  eyes  of  the  proprietor,  though, 
were  everywhere.  In  the  larger  shops  detec- 
tives are  employed  at  such  times:  Mr.  Borlase 
was  his  own  policeman. 

Not  that  he  would  have  perpetrated  the  im- 
prudence, except  in  the  case  of  flagrant  neces- 
sity, of  arresting  a  thief  (we  do  not  call  them 
kleptomaniacs  as  yet  in  our  part  of  the  world) ; 
the  young  men  and  women  were  supposed  to 
look  to  the  safety  of  their  stock,  and  had  Mr. 
Borlase  seen  anything  stolen  he  would  probably 
have  charged  it,  at  selling  prices,  to  the  at- 
tendant. But  South  Camberwell,  despite  its  un- 
prepossessing appearance,  is  more  honest  than 
some  of  its  betters,  and  peculation  rarely  occurs 
in  our  shops — a  subject  for  legitimate  self-con- 
gratulation in  the  Suburb. 

The  sale,  therefore,  prospered  exceedingly, 
and  only  a  few  of  the  assistants  got  any  tea. 
The  chip  hats  arrived  at  the  side  door  just  as 
Stanton  came  down  from  a  hasty  meal — eaten 
standing — and  he  employed  himself  at  once  in 
the  business  of  unpacking  them.  As  many  as 
remained  at  the  end  of  the  week  were  trimmed 

8 


114  BORLASE   &   SON 

after  a  jerry-built  manner  in  the  workrooms 
over  the  back  shop,  and  sold,  at  a  profitable  in- 
crease in  price,  as  summer  novelties.  Thus  does 
the  "  remnant  "  of  one  week  become  the  leading 
attraction  of  another,  renewed  like  the  eagle  at 
the  expense  of  the  wasted  youth  of  worn-out 
men  and  maidens. 

Stanton's  movements,  during  the  trying  sea- 
son of  the  sale,  and  in  fact  all  his  acts  both 
in  and  out  of  the  shop,  were  quietly  but  closely 
observed  by  Mr.  Borlase.  The  latter,  indeed, 
saw  at  all  times  a  good  deal  more  than  he  spoke 
of.  Not  that  he  suffered  the  shortcomings  of 
anyone  to  pass  unchidden.  To  do  so  would  have 
appeared  to  him  a  negligence  such  as  he  de- 
plored in  public  confession  every  Sunday  some- 
what perfunctorily,  since  he  was  rarely  con- 
scious at  all  of  having  done  those  things  which 
he  ought  not  to.  He  was  accustomed  to  reprove 
any  error  not  actually  finable,  on  principle.  If 
you  did  not  complain  when  your  shop-people 
behaved  carelessly,  you  would  have  no  right  to 
be  surprised  if  they  went  on  being  careless.  In 
the  case  of  his  ward,  Mr.  Borlase  was  conscious, 
too,  of  responsibility  nobly  fulfilled,  when  he 
caught  him  tripping  and  sharply  scolded  him 
for  his  good. 

Nor  can  it  be  pretended  that  Stanton's  guar- 
dian was  peculiar  in  this.  There  are  many  peo- 
ple with  whom  the  comminatory  part  of  one's 
duty  towards  one's  neighbour  will  always  re- 
ceive more  scrupulous  performance  than  any 
other.  But  it  was  not  merely  when  he  was 


BORLASE   &   SON  115 

scolding  that  Mr.  Borlase  scrutinised  young 
Stanton.  On  the  contrary,  he  studied  the  lad's 
demeanour  and  characteristics  with  shrewdness 
and  discrimination,  and  watched  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  character  with  attention. 

This  development  was  in  some  respects  slower 
than  he  wished.  Stanton  had  fallen  easily  into 
the  place  prepared^ for  him.  He  did  what  he 
was  told  willingly  enough,  though  with  no  very 
marked  ability:  but  the  only  sign  of  his  indi- 
vidual predilection  was  a  strong  distaste  for 
shop-walking,  or  any  duty  which  required  him 
to  accost  the  public  uninvited.  Above  all,  he 
displayed  neither  originality,  resource,  nor  par- 
ticular personal  taste  in  any  matter:  and  Mr. 
Borlase  was  proportionately  dissatisfied.  He 
wished  his  son  to  be,  like  his  adoptive  parent, 
a  person  having  some  force  of  character.  It 
was  like  Mr.  Borlase  to  expect,  and  to  be  an- 
grily disappointed  when  he  did  not  perceive,  the 
prompt  appearance  of  the  characteristics  he  de- 
sired. Stanton's  timid  bashfulness,  his  submis- 
sion and  obedience  to  his  guardian's  will  and 
commands,  seemed  to  that  guardian  eminently 
proper.  But  Stanton's  easy  acquiescence  in 
other  people's  convenience,  his  readiness  to  help 
anyone  who  seemed  to  desire  help,  and  to  save 
trouble  to  the  shopmen  and  the  "  young  ladies  " 
of  the  counter,  appeared  to  Mr.  Borlase  in  the 
light  of  weak  amiabilities,  all  the  more  irritating 
because  they  took  no  form  which  he  could  com- 
plain of.  After  all,  Stanton  was  endeavouring 
to  "  make  himself  useful/  as  he  had  been  bidden. 


n6  BORLASE   &   SON 

Only  he  should  have  been  useful  to  the  business, 
not  to  the  assistants.  And  certainly  he  should 
have  had  ideas  of  his  own,  for  his  own  benefit 
or  for  the  benefit  of  Borlase  &  Company. 
Whereas,  he  was  a  mere  pawn  on  the  board. 
Even  on  holidays  he  appeared  not  to  care  par- 
ticularly where  he  was  or  what  became  of  him- 
self. It  was  not  thus,  Mr.  Borlase  was  aware, 
that  great  business  men  are  made,  and  he  would 
have  entertained  a  higher  opinion  of  his  protege 
had  the  latter  even  shown  occasional  signs  of 
mild  revolt — not  that  any  weak  appreciation  of 
such  a  symptom  would  have  restrained  his  guar- 
dian from  prompt  repression  of  the  rebellion. 

"  I  wish  you'd  have  some  plans  of  your  own 
for  once,"  he  said  to  him,  testily,  on  Good 
Friday,  when,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  yourself  this  after- 
noon ? "  Stanton  had  replied,  with  his  usual 
timid  good-humour,  "  Anything  that  you  wish, 
sir." 

This  interchange  took  place  as  they  were  re- 
turning from  church.  Mr.  Borlase's  middle- 
Victorian  attitude  of  mind  had  not  absorbed  the 
more  recent  usage  of  regarding  Good  Friday 
as  a  day  of  mourning  and  more  than  Sabbath 
asceticism.  The  sublime  and  tender  allusion 
of  the  Liturgy  for  the  day  said  nothing  to  him ; 
and  the  popish  customs  of  fasting  and  self-re- 
pression on  what,  after  all,  was  only  a  sort  of 
modified  week-day,  interruptive  of  trade,  would 
have  aroused  his  profound  distaste.  He  at- 
tended church  on  the  morning  of  the  Day  of 


BORLASE  &   SON  117 

Tragedy  chiefly  because  he  was  a  churchwarden, 
but  partly  also  because  the  bleak  exercises  of 
the  occasion  commended  themselves  to  his  au- 
stere mode  of  religious  taste.  For  the  same  rea- 
son of  personal  predilection  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  attending  service  on  Ash  Wednesday.  It 
was  agreeable  to  hear  the  sins  of  the  sinful  con- 
dignly  denounced,  and  from  Mr.  Borlase's  ideas 
nothing  could  have  been  more  remote  than 
that  any  custom  of  his  own  trade  came  within 
the  scope  of  these  denunciations.  Mr.  Borlase, 
indeed,  never  considered  religion  or  the  Bible 
as  exercising  any  relation  to  his  own  conduct: 
he  had  too  high  an  opinion  of  their  Author  to 
suspect  them  of  any  ill-mannered  personalities. 
Cursed,  then,  be  he,  by  all  means,  who  removed 
his  neighbour's  landmark.  Mr.  Borlase  obedi- 
ently abhorred  such  wickedness,  without,  per- 
haps, taking  very  much  thought  as  to  what  it 
meant.  There  was  nothing  whatever  said  aboqt ' 
undermeasuring  your  neighbour's  calico,  and 
Mr.  Borlase's  withers  were  unwrung. 

If  Good  Friday  could  by  any  paradox  fall 
upon  a  Sunday,  Mr.  Borlase  would  have  re- 
garded with  equal  horror  the  idea  of  enjoying 
oneself.  But  the  calendar  fortunately  decreeing 
otherwise,  he  deemed  decorous  relaxation  as 
excusable  then  as  at  any  other  time,  and  was 
genially  prepared  to  let  Stanton  set  off  in  search 
of  it.  The  latter  would  have  been  willing 
enough  to  seek  enjoyment  had  he  known  where 
to  go  for  it.  But  his  spirits  were  not  high,  in 
spite  of  a  glorious  day.  The  heavy  week's  work 


n8  BORLASE   &   SON 

had  left  him  indolent  and  languid;  and  disuse 
had  deprived  him  of  the  taste  for  exercise. 
When  invited,  therefore,  to  say  in  what  way  he 
proposed  to  amuse  himself,  he  had  no  views  to 
propound. 

But  finding  that  he  was  expected  to  want  to 
do  something,  he  obediently  prepared  a  desire 
to  go  out,  after  one  o'clock  dinner. 

"  I  think  I'll  take  a  walk  round  the  Rye,  sir," 
he  said,  as  they  ate  their  cheese.  And  Mr.  Bor- 
lase  answered  sententiously : 

"  All  right,  my  boy.  Go,  by  all  means.  Boys 
will  be  boys:  but  don't  get  into  any  mischief," 
and  Stanton  felt  rather  a  prodigal. 

His  guardian,  it  appeared,  did  not  intend  to 
accompany  him,  so  Stanton  set  off  alone,  with 
his  hands  in  his  overcoat  pockets,  and  his  eyes, 
as  usual,  on  the  pavement. 

Peckham  Lane,  where  Borlase  &  Company's 
establishment  was  situate,  wore  an  air  of  some- 
what Sabbatarian  jauntiness.  The  shops — even 
the  bakers',  bunless  now — were  all  closed,  and 
groups  of  young  men  and  girls  in  knitted  com- 
forters and  well-buttoned  clothes  (for  the 
weather,  though  bright,  was  still  cold)  walked 
idly  along  in  the  direction  of  the  Rye,  with  prac- 
tical jokes  of  the  rudimentary  kind  which  pass 
for  amative  advances  in  their  class.  On  a  piece 
of  open  ground,  where  even  in  summer  the 
grass  would  never  be  allowed  by  the  feet  of  the 
district  to  make  more  than  a  decent  pretence  of 
growing,  stood  a  sanguine  ice-cream  barrow, 
where,  with  a  weak  deference  to  the  peculiari- 


BORLASE   &   SON  119 

ties  alike  of  our  climate  and  our  taste,  roasted 
chestnuts  were  also  on  sale.  Near  by,  a  board, 
tied  to  the  railings,  made  no  secret  of  the  fact 
that  in  a  neighbouring  chapel  the  Reverend  J. 
Elijah  Peterson  would  (D.  V.)  preach  at  half- 
past  six  next  Sunday;  subject,  "  Riotous  Liv- 
ing." A  few  ill-clothed  men  stamped  their  feet 
and  breathed  on  their  fingers,  while  they  ex- 
changed jokes,  outside  the  regretted  portals  of 
a  shabby  beer-shop.  The  air  was  full  of  a  vague 
rumour  and  noisiness  which  grew  louder  as 
Stanton  made  his  way  towards  Nunhead  Lane, 
leading  to  the  goal  of  his  expedition. 

This  murmur  analysed  itself  into  mechanical 
and  conflicting  music  from  several  sources,  and 
a  vast  quantity  of  shouting,  when  he  drew 
nearer  to  Rye  Lane:  and  it  became  frankly  a 
tumult  when  the  Rye  itself,  that  object  of  the 
London  County  Council's  benevolent  exertions, 
presently  received  him. 

For  the  Rye,  bathed  in  the  rare,  pellucid  sun- 
shine of  our  cold  spring,  was  crowded  with 
working-class  humanity.  Along  the  sides  of  the 
dividing  road,  just  above  the  larger  pond,  were 
rows  of  barrows,  whose  proprietors  acclaimed 
the  virtues  of  the  nuts,  oranges,  and  extraordi- 
narily unattractive  sweetmeats  and  cakes  which 
loaded  them.  In  the  pond  itself  some  boys  were 
even  "  paddling  "  with  unclean  limbs  laid  bare 
to  the  cold.  One  urchin,  boldly  defiant  in  ab- 
sence of  the  maternal  will,  was  exhibiting  an  ad- 
mirable independence  of  spirit  by  splashing 
about  in  boots  and  stockings.  Within  the  cob- 


120  BORLASE   &   SON 

ble-stoned  enclosure  near  the  King's  Arms, 
stood  tethered  a  stableful  of  low-spirited  don- 
keys, in  charge  of  a  handsome  gypsy  woman: 
and  on  waste  ground  a  little  way  off,  a  steam  cir- 
cus, furnished  with  an  organ  of  excellent  brassi- 
ness,  was  doing  a  splendid  trade,  the  strains  of 
its  music  executing  a  warning  ritucndo  as  each 
pennyworth  of  circular  delight  wore  to  a  de- 
spairing end. 

Stanton  paused  on  the  kerb  to  watch  the  gilt 
and  mirrors  of  this  machine  whirl  round.  A 
group  of  factory  girls — some  wearing  even  to- 
day the  white  apron  of  their  pride — shared  true 
lovely  spectacle,  and  one  of  them,  over  a  defiant 
shoulder,  invited  Stanton  to  "  stand  "  her  a  ride. 
The  whole  group  turned  towards  him  when  she 
spoke.  "  Come  on,  Mister,  give  the  girl  a 
chawnce."  "Go  'way;  you  ain't  got  no  man- 
ners when  a  young  lydy  speaks  to  you."  "  Why 
don't  yer  marry  the  gel  ?  "  He  turned,  abashed, 
to  go. 

"I  s'y!  Have  you  lost  anything?"  was  a 
parting  and  successful  shot  from  the  first 
speaker — a  delicate  allusion  to  Stanton's  fune- 
real-looking clothes,  and  a  black  satin  necktie 
which  Mr.  Borlase  had  highly  approved. 

He  walked  away  along  the  Rye,  red-cheeked 
and  angry-humoured.  He  took  care  not  to  lay 
himself  open  to  fresh  abashment  by  lingering 
again.  The  number  of  conflicting  piano-organs 
was  as  astonishing  as  the  quantity  of  babies  that 
were  being  carried  about.  Everyone  but  him- 
self was  jovial  and  in  high  spirits:  he  alone 


BORLASE   &   SON  121 

seemed  to  find  the  east  wind  chill  and  penetrat- 
ing. The  merry  company  was  vocal,  often  with 
the  most  astonishing  and  harmless  obscenity.  I 
say  harmless,  because  clearly  no  one  attached 
the  smallest  real  significance  to  his  or  her  fright- 
ful expressions,  which,  in  their  innoxious  scur- 
rility, left  untouched  not  the  most  intimate  mo- 
ment or  function  of  man,  from  his  conception 
to  his  everlasting  (and  fiery)  destruction. 
Neither  the  speakers  nor  their  hearers  had  even 
rudimentary  imagination;  else  they  must  have 
fled  in  dumb  horror,  realising  the  signification 
of  the  words  that  were  being  uttered.  For  them 
these  words  had  no  immediate  meaning:  they 
were  regarded  merely  as  witty  and  tasteful  ex- 
pressions of  good  fellowship.  A  French  mob 
of  the  same  character  would  have  had  a  hun- 
dred times  the  vice  in  it,  without  a  hundredth 
part  of  these  verbal  horrors. 

But  Stanton  was  happily  a  lad  of  neither  much 
imagination  nor  much  experience,  so  that  when 
he  came  within  earshot  of  such  groups,  the 
words  he  heard  seemed  to  him — as  indeed  they 
really  were — quite  meaningless.  He  walked 
fairly  round  Peckham  Rye,  and  so  down  the 
hill  home  again,  where,  fortunately  seeing  only 
the  housekeeper,  he  slipped  up  to  his  bed-room 
and  lay  on  his  bed,  reading,  until  tea-time. 

Mr.  Borlase  had  remained  in  the  dining- 
room. 


CHAPTER   IX 

AFLOAT 

IT  was  by  his  reflections  during  the  Good  Fri- 
day afternoon  thus  employed  by  Stanton,  that 
the  immediate  action  of  Mr.  Borlase  towards  the 
latter  was  precipitated. 

He  had  never  purposed  to  keep  Stanton  per- 
manently in  the  shop.  The  lad  would  gain  a 
larger  and  more  valuable  experience  elsewhere 
than  the  Southern  Suburb  could  afford,  and 
Mr.  Borlase  had  intended  to  obtain  for  him 
some  sort  of  employment  "  in  the  wholesale  "  at 
the  first  opportunity.  This,  I  say,  had  been 
his  intention.  But  by  Friday  night,  in  the  ma- 
turity of  his  deliberations,  he  had  thought  out 
a  totally  different  course  of  action. 

For  Mr.  Borlase,  whatever  else  may  have 
been  his  faults,  was  no  sentimentalist;  and  with 
all  his  commercial  shrewdness,  he  was  a  man  es- 
sentially of  narrow  mind  and  strong  prejudices. 
He  considered  his  success  in  life  as  due  to  the 
high  qualities  of  his  own  intelligence,  fostered 
by  the  necessity,  which  had  overtaken  him  at 
a  very  early  age,  of  learning  how  to  look  after 
an  individual  whom  he  approvingly  denomi- 
nated "  Number  One."  The  first  step  of  this  ad- 
vancement, whereby  he  gained  the  confidence 


BORLASE   &   SON  123 

of  the  wholesale  firm  which  then  employed  him, 
and  by  whose  development  he  was  at  length 
permitted  to  espouse  with  prudent  ardours  the 
far  from  attractive  daughter  of  a  junior  partner, 
had  been  his  dissociation  of  himself  from  a  sort 
of  strike  among  his  fellow-clerks.  The  latter  had 
the  unkindness  to  denominate  it  blacklegging, 
so  rare  is  the  cardinal  virtue  of  charity  among 
the  submerged.  But  Mr.  Borlase  attributed  the 
progress  thus  happily  initiated  to  qualities  in 
himself  enhanced  by  the  necessity  of  early  self- 
support.  His  upward  path  had  been  slow. 
Stanton,  with  the  advantages  of  transcendant 
example  and  unstinted  precept,  might,  he  at 
first  considered,  acquire  something  of  the  neces- 
sary business  faculty  in  the  regions  to  which 
he  was  to  have  been  wafted  on  the  wings  of 
Mr.  Borlase's  influential  recommendation. 
But  this  was  not  enough.  There  was  also,  the 
draper  considered,  a  certain  hardness  of  moral 
integument  not  less  necessary  to  commercial 
success.  And  the  lad,  however  teachable  he 
had  approved  himself,  showed  no  rudiment  of 
this  callosity,  distinguished  by  his  Guardian  as 
force  of  character.  He  was  indignantly  per- 
ceived to  be,  on  the  contrary,  only  too  obliging, 
too  ductile,  too  considerate  of  others.  He  would 
only,  Mr.  Borlase  now  decided,  get  hardened-up 
by  the  same  rough  discipline  of  the  world  as  had 
yielded  such  pleasing  effects  in  the  person  of 
Mr.  Borlase  himself. 

Accordingly,  on  Easter  Monday,   Mr.   Bor- 
lase bade  Stanton  await  him  in  the  drawing- 


124  BORLASE   &   SON 

room  after  breakfast.  "  I  wish,"  said  he,  "  to 
talk  with  you  about  the  future  " — an  announce- 
ment which  effectually  took  away  Stanton's  ap- 
petite, and  left  him  pale  and  nervous  when  the 
assistants  had  filed  out  to  their  holiday. 

The  wind  having  veered  on  Sunday  to  a 
warmer  quarter,  the  bright  weather  of  Holy 
Week  had  given  place  to  a  foggy  and  drizzling 
dampness.  Outside  the  warehouse  door,  the 
cobblestones  of  the  side  street  were  grey  with 
mud,  the  footway  wet  and  dirty;  but  the  men 
had  all  straggled  out,  in  one  direction  or  an- 
other: most  of  the  "  young  ladies  "  remained  in- 
doors and  gossiped  in  bed-rooms  or  in  their 
sitting-room,  having  neither  means  of  amuse- 
ment, nor  money  to  spend,  abroad. 

"  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  said  Mr. 
Borlase,  with  the  air  of  one  who  announces  the 
decisions  of  a  Cabinet,  "  that  you  have  been 
long  enough  in  swaddling-clothes.  It  is  time 
for  you  to  think  for  yourself,  and  you  are  not 
learning  to  do  that."  He  paused. 

"  No,  sir." 

"  No,  sir !  You  are  having  your  way  made  for 
you.  If  you  are  ever  to  be  any  good  in  the 
world,  it  won't  be  because  the  world  has  made 
way  for  you.  You  will  have  to  make  it  for  your- 
self. Now,  you  haven't  done  that,  have  you?  " 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't  know  quite  what  you 
wish — or  rather,  what  you  mean,  sir,"  said  Stan- 
ton,  conscious  that  in  some  way  or  other  he  had 
been  found  wanting,  and  wondering  what  he 
ought  to  say. 


BORLASE   &   SON  125 

"  You  are  in  swaddling-clothes  at  present," 
Mr.  Borlase  repeated,  having  been  pleased  with 
this  metaphor.  "  I  want  you  to  prove  that  you 
can  run  alone." 

"  What  do  you  wish  me  to  do,  then?  "  Stan- 
ton  asked  maladroitly. 

"  Damn  it,"  said  Mr.  Borlase  (with  much 
emphatic  effect,  for  he  seldom  swore,  regarding 
the  practice  as  immoral  and  undignified). 
"  Damn  it,  I  want  you  to  wish  to  do  something. 
Don't  interrupt  me!  And  I  don't  think  you 
will  wish  to  do  anything  so  long  as  you  are 
where  you  are  now.  You're  afraid  of  the  world, 
man !  You're  afraid  of  the  sound  of  your  own 
voice.  You've  got  to  make  the  world  afraid 
of  you,  let  me  tell  you,  before  you'll  make  head- 
way. I  shan't,"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  with  a  pious 
glance  in  the  direction  of  the  ceiling,  "  always 
be  here  to  make  your  way  for  you;  and  you'll 
go  to  the  devil  if  you  only  learn  to  do  what  other 
people  wisli —  Eh,  what,  Miss  Wilkinson?" 

A  girl  had  returned  to  the  room.  "  Might 
I,"  she  asked,  "  be  let  in  at  ten  minutes  past 
eleven,  to-night?  I'm  going  to  my  married  sis- 
ter's in  the " 

"  You  know  the  rule,"  Mr.  Borlase  inter- 
rupted, cutting  short  this  explanation.  "  Eleven 
o'clock  is  time  to  lock  the  door,  and  the  staff 
are  expected  to  be  in  by  then."  He  turned 
away. 

"  My  sister  lives  at  Holloway,"  Miss  Wilkin- 
son explained.  "  The  last  train  gets  down  at 
eleven-five.  The  one  before  that  is  at  nine." 


126  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Well,  what  of  it?"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  without 
looking  over  his  shoulder.  "  Do  I  arrange  the 
trains?" 

"  It  makes  two  hours — "  the  girl  began. 

"  Eleven  o'clock  is  our  time,"  said  Mr.  Bor- 
lase. "  If  you  don't  like  it,  you  can  get  up  early 
in  the  morning,  and  come  in  here  at  eight." 

The  girl  went  out.  Mr.  Borlase,  after  waiting 
in  testy  silence  until  she  had  closed  the  door, 
resumed  his  discourse  exactly  as  if  nothing  had 
interrupted  it.  "  Consequently,"  he  said,  "  I 
don't  intend  you  to  return  to  the  shop.  I  intend 
you  to  try  what  you  can  do  by  yourself." 

He  looked  at  Stanton,  who  had  no  answer 
ready. 

"  You  will  pack  up  your  things  ready  to  go 
away,  and  find  yourself  some  lodgings,"  Mr. 
Borlase  continued.  "  I  shall  lend  you  twenty 
pounds,  which  I  advise  you  to  take  good  care 
of.  You  are  to  go  to  work  on  your  own  ac- 
count, without  any  help  from  me;  except — wait 
a  bit — except  that  you  will  want  a  reference. 
You  can  refer  to  me  for  your  first  place.  You 
will  take  your  own  name — call  yourself  John 
Stanton.  Get  a  clerkship  or  something;  I  don't 
care  what.  Please  yourself.  By  what  work  you 
get  and  can  keep,  you'll  show  what  you  are  good 
for.  Live  as  you  can,  and  as  you  please.  I  ex- 
pect you  to  keep  yourself  for  a  year,  during 
which  time  you  are  not  to  use  my  name,  nor 
refer  to  me  for  advice  or  anything  else,  except 
in  the  way  I  have  told  you,  as  your  first  ref- 
erence. If  at  the  end  of  a  year  you  can  return 


BORLASE   &   SON  127 

me  my  twenty  pounds — I  don't  want  any  in- 
terest," Mr.  Borlase  generously  interjected — 
"  I  shall  hear  what  you  have  been  doing,  and  see 
what  you  seem  to  be  good  for.  If  you  haven't 
got  my  twenty  pounds  to  repay,  but  can  keep 
yourself,  go  on  working  until  you  have  got  it 
back.  Learn  to  save  money,  and  you  will  learn 
to  make  money.  That's  a  good  proverb." 

Stanton  looked  astonished  and  (I  fear)  rather 
blank.  He  had,  in  truth,  not  the  least  notion 
of  what  to  do,  and  still  less  of  what  to  say.  Mr. 
Borlase  awaited  his  reply. 

"  Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  boy  obediently. 

"  I  don't  say  but  what  I  give  you  the  choice," 
his  guardian  added.  "  If  you  are  afraid  to  take 
it  on,  say  so." 

Stanton  was  afraid  to  try;  but  he  was  still 
more  afraid  to  refuse.  "  I  will  try  my  luck,"  he 
said.  "  When  am  I  to  start  ?  " 

"  To-morrow,"  said  Mr.  Borlase.  "  You  will 
breakfast  in  my  dining-room,  and  start  out  im- 
mediately afterwards.  You  are  not  to  communi- 
cate with  anyone  in  the  shop.  When  you  have 
got  your  lodgings,  you  can  fetch  or  send  for 
your  box.  I  suppose  you  will  bring  a  cab,"  he 
added  with  a  sneer.  "  When  I  was  a  boy  I 
should  have  carried  it  on  my  back." 

Stanton  sate  still,  looking  at  the  tablecloth, 
and  rolling  little  pieces  of  bread  into  pills.  He 
did  not  understand  his  guardian's  motives. 
Somehow — he  knew  not  wherein — he  seemed  to 
be  undergoing  reproof.  He  would  have  liked 
to  ask  what  his  offence  had  been.  He  wanted 


128  BORLASE   &   SON 

to  say,  "  Is  there  anything  I  have  done  that  dis- 
pleases you?  Can't  you  tell  me,  and  let  me 
amend  it,  without  being  turned  out  of  doors?  " 
But  he  lacked  (as  usual)  the  impulse  to  demand 
an  explanation.  He  would  have  liked  to  offer 
to  serve  a  counter,  to  herd  with  the  grey-faced, 
black-coated  assistants,  to  sleep  in  their  dingy 
house,  and  eat  their  hard  fare — if  only  he  might 
remain  where  he  had  become  accustomed  to 
live.  But  he  could  not  speak.  His  very  silence 
now  became  an  offence.  Mr.  Borlase,  though 
honestly,  and  indeed  rightly,  persuaded  that  his 
plan  was  good  for  Stanton,  was  hardening  his 
heart.  "Haven't  you  anything  to  say?"  he 
asked  austerely,  as  the  lad  still  kept  his  silence. 

Stanton  swallowed  hard.  "  It  is  rather  a 
startler,  sir,"  he  said,  looking  at  his  plate.  "  I 
—I " 

"  You — you — "  said  Mr.  Borlase  testily. 
"You— you ?" 

"  I  haven't  yet  accustomed  myself  to  the  idea, 
sir,"  Stanton  remonstrated.  He  almost  had  it  in 
his  mind  to  reproach  the  Monument  of  Benevo- 
lence across  the  table ;  the  measure  served  out  to 
him  seemed  so  very  hard. 

Mr.  Borlase  perhaps  divined  as  much.  Even 
the  dullest  of  us  have  our  intuitions. 

"  I  daresay  you  think  yourself  very  hardly 
used,"  he  said.  "  I  expect  it.  I  don't  expect 
gratitude,  thank  God !  "  (Mr.  Borlase  often 
pointed  an  example  by  thankfulness  for  the 
moderation  of  his  own  demands.)  "  I  don't  look 
for  gratitude,  thank  God,  in  this  world " 


BORLASE   &    SON  129 

For  once  in  his  life  Stanton  interrupted  his 
guardian. 

"  I  hope  I  am  not  ungrateful,  sir— I  hope  it 
isn't  because  I  may  have  seemed  so  " 

Mr.  Borlase  struck  into  his  speech: 

"  It  isn't '  because  '  of  anything,  you  little  fool. 
It's  for  your  good/'  he  said.  "  I  want  you  to 
make  your  own  way.  It  is  to  make  a  man  of 
you." 

Stanton  was  almost  ready  to  cry;  but  he  had 
also  pride  enough  to  choke  down  this  inclina- 
tion. "  You  wish  me  to  show  myself  a  man, 
sir?"  he  said — and  his  head  went  up  and  his 
shoulders  stiffened  with  a  certain  resolution. 
"  Then  I  will  try.  No,  sir;  I  am  not  afraid.  I 
will  try  what  I  can  do  by  myself." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  who  seemed 
really  rather  difficult  to  satisfy.  "  Yes,  yes.  I've 
no  doubt  you  think  yourself  a  very  clever  person 
and  quite  able  to  look  after  your  own  interests. 
Well,  you  have  your  chance.  Make  the  most 
of  it.  For  I  don't  disguise  from  you  that  a  good 
deal  depends  on  it."  And  with  this  he  rose 
rather  menacingly  from  the  table,  and  went  out. 

But  he  did  soften  a  little — being,  as  already 
has  been  hinted,  not  without  his  own  bleak  af- 
fection for  the  lad — when  bed-time  came  that 
night.  So  far  as  Mr.  Borlase  had  ever  experi- 
enced such  a  sentiment  as  affection,  Stanton 
had  been  the  object  of  that  weakness.  And 
when  Stanton  rose  to  go  to  bed,  with  the  usual 
"  Good-night,  sir,"  his  patron,  across  the  supper 
table,  held  out  a  soft,  cold  hand.  "  Good-bye, 
9 


130  BORLASE   &   SON 

my  boy,"  he  said,  not  unkindly,  "  I  am  acting 
for  your  good,  and  you  will  thank  me  for  this 
some  day." 

Stanton's  eyes  filled,  and  again  he  choked 
down  something  in  his  throat.  A  very  little  en- 
couragement— it  is  pitiful  to  think  how  little — 
might  have  made  him  love  this  guardian,  whom 
so  few  of  his  dependents  found  even  tolerable, 
and  would  have  enabled  him  to  go  forth  with 
some  higher  ideal  than  mere  self-preservation 
during  the  year  of  his  trial.  But  Mr.  Borlase's 
affection  was  too  austerely  repressed,  his  emo- 
tions were  too  hardly  controlled,  to  let  Stanton 
perceive  the  sentiment  with  which  he  was  re- 
garded. He  had  been  a  stranger  to  all  tender- 
ness since  the  death  of  his  foster-mother.  Mr. 
Borlase  had  designed  to  make  him  strong;  he 
had  only  succeeded — and  Stanton  did  not  real- 
ise even  this — in  making  the  lad  heart-hungry. 
His  shyness  gripped  him  hard  even  now,  and 
gave  him  a  measure  of  self-control  that  seemed 
callousness.  He  merely  repeated,  "  Good-night, 
sir;  I  thank  you  now,"  and  walked  out  of  the 
room  to  cry  himself  to  sleep,  after  having  laid 
out,  ready  to  pack  away  in  the  morning  the 
two  or  three  toilet  necessaries  which  for  so  long 
now  had  been  the  daily  reminders  of  his  loss  of 
the  only  being  who  had  ever  kissed  him. 

And  in  the  expensive  drawing-room  Mr.  Bor- 
lase sate  still,  looking  before  him,  and  blaming 
his  ward's  ingratitude — which  shows  how  un- 
reasonble  the  shrewdest "  of  us  are,  and  how 
cruelly  the  intimate  privacy  of  every  human  soul 
cuts  off  sympathy. 


BORLASE   &   SON  131 

Stanton  went  quietly  away  in  the  morning 
without  having  seen  his  guardian.  The  latter 
had  gone  early  to  the  shop  as  usual,  and  Stan- 
ton,  we  have  heard,  had  been  forbidden  to  enter 
it.  Only  the  hard-faced  housekeeper  saw  him 
leave  the  premises;  and  it  was  she  who  helped 
him  to  carry  his  light  box  downstairs,  when, 
presently,  he  arrived  to  fetch  it — a  man,  now, 
with  a  name  and  address  of  his  own. 


CHAPTER  X 

"  DIGGINGS  " 

STANTON'S  search  for  a  lodging  occupied  him 
during  some  hours — hours  spent  in  weary  walk- 
ing through  many  miles  of  side  streets,  in  a 
wretched  state  of  indecision.  Cards  in  a  win- 
dow attracted  his  painful  attention  at  every  turn; 
but  the  houses  which  displayed  these  decorations 
perturbed  his  uneasy  spirit.  Those  which  ap- 
peared at  first  sight  eligible  as  possible  future 
residences  alarmed  his  prescience;  he  feared  that 
they  might  be  too  costly  for  his  pocket — the  re- 
flections of  the  night  had  warned  him  that  he 
might  not  find  a  situation  very  easily,  and  that 
he  must  at  all  cost  minimise  his  outgoings.  But 
the  houses  which  looked  safe  on  this  score 
alarmed  him  in  another  way;  the  hard-featured, 
slatternly  inhabitants  who  overflowed  these 
premises  gave  him  frequent  pause,  and  often 
drove  him  hastily  on  wihen  they  inquired,  as  he 
peered  at  "  Lodgings  for  a  Single  Man,"  ill- 
written  or  worse  printed  on  a  window  ticket, 
whether  he  "might"  be  looking  for  "diggings." 
His  departing  steps  were  more  than  once  fol- 
lowed by  inquiries  as  to  what  the — anything  sug- 
gested by  the  taste  and  delicacy  of  the  inquirer 
— he  was  gaping  at,  then.  So,  he  walked  about, 
until  three  o'clock,  when  a  dull  emptiness  at  the 


BORLASE   &   SON  133 

stomach  reminded  him  that  he  had  not  eaten 
since  breakfast,  and  he  stood  up  in  a  baker's  to 
eat  a  couple  of  currant  rolls,  whose  insipid 
stodginess  gave  him  the  impression  that  they 
must  be  at  least  filling.  Presently,  in  a  confec- 
tioner's, he  washed  them  down  with  what  was 
called  lemonade,  out  of  a  large  bottle  with  a 
deceptive  lemon  for  stopper — a  beverage  chosen 
with  the  mistaken  idea  that  it  might  correct  the 
indigestion  which  the  rolls  had  already  begun  to 
inflict  upon  him. 

Finally,  after  walking  many  weary  times  in 
wretched  irresolution  up  and  down  a  street 
which  seemed  to  strike  the  sort  of  medium  be- 
tween the  savagery  which  frightened  him  and 
the  splendour  which  aroused  his  misgivings,  he 
knocked  at  what  seemed  to  him  in  some  vague 
way  the  most  harmless  of  the  many  doors  which 
offered  shelter  to  the  uncomplicated  male,  and 
waited — in  vain —  for  a  response. 

The  house  had  three  storeys,  with  a  sunken 
yard  in  front  and  the  usual  railings  and  area- 
bell.  The  two  windows  on  the  street  level  had 
shabby  iron-gauze  blinds  with  brass  tops,  here 
and  there  black  where  the  lacquer  had  come  off, 
and  green  "  Venetians "  nearly  meeting  them. 
One  knows  the  kind  of  house:  sunlight  is  ex- 
cluded on  principle,  in  the  interest  of  carpets 
long  past  damage  by  any  bleaching  agent.  The 
door  was  "grained"  in  the  usual  horrible  parody 
of  oak,  worn  and  cracked  by  the  sun.  The 
knocker  was  an  equally  conventionalised  laurel 
wreath  in  cast  iron;  apparently  it  was  not  very 


134  BORLASE   &   SON 

effective  as  an  instrument  of  summons,  for  Stan- 
ton's  timid  rat-tat  produced  no  result.  A 
butcher-boy  with  empty  tray  walked  along  the 
pavement,  on  the  opposite  side,  whistling  stri- 
dently and  looking  for  a  cat  to  chivy.  Catching 
sight  of  Stanton,  who  was  standing  on  the  edge 
of  the  door-steps  and  looking  up  at  the  windows, 
he  stopped  at  gaze.  Presently  lounging  across 
the  road,  he  accosted  the  stranger. 

"  Cawn't  make  no  one  year?  "  he  inquired. 

"  I  have  knocked,"  replied  Stanton,  "  but  no 
one  seems  to  be  coming." 

"  W'y  don't  you  knock  agen,  then? "  sug- 
gested the  butcher  boy;  and  Stanton,  his  fear  of 
seeming  impatient  dominated  by  the  stronger 
will,  obediently  repeated  his  former  attack  on 
the  door. 

"  'Course  they  cawn't  year  yer  if  you  don't 
knock  no  louder  than  that,"  said  the  critic. 
"  Here — let  me  'ave  a  go;"  and  taking  the 
knocker  he  gave  a  resounding  single  knock,  and 
retreated  to  the  kerb  to  note  the  result.  A 
woman  in  soiled  apron  came  out  into  the  sunken 
yard  and  looked  up. 

"Was  that  you  knocking?"  she  inquired  of 
the  blushing  Stanton. 

"  Yes — that  is,  no,  I  mean,"  he  stammered, 
getting  redder  at  each  word.  The  butcher  boy, 
sighting  a  dog-fight,  had  suddenly  walked  off. 
The  woman  stared.  "  What  do  you  want  on  the 
doorstep,  then  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  I — I  believe  you  have  a  room  to  let,"  he 
replied. 


BORLASE   &   SON  135 

"  Oh,  then  you  did  knock,"  said  the  landlady. 
"  What  did  you  say  you  didn't  for  ?  Wait  a  bit ; 
I'll  come  up." 

She  disappeared,  and  after  an  interval,  during 
which  her  apron  had  somehow  vanished  also, 
opened  the  door.  A  practised  eye  had  taken 
Stanton's  measure  on  the  instant.  "  Very  com- 
fortable room  on  the  second  floor,  back;  eight 
shillings  a  week,"  she  said,  being,  like  a  certain 
Prince,  "  fat  and  scant  of  breath."  The  usual 
rent  of  the  apartment  was  six  shillings,  with 
"  attendance,"  included. 

"  Oh,"  said  Stanton,  irresolutely.  He  had  not 
an  idea  on  the  subject  of  rent.  The  landlady 
eyed  him  in  silence  for  some  seconds.  Then, 
"  Will  it  suit  you?  "  she  asked. 

"  I— I  don't  know,"  Stanton  replied.  "  Er— 
is  it  furnished  ?  " 

The  landlady  was  perceiving  more  fully  every 
moment  the  kind  of  youth  that  generous  for- 
tune had  led  into  her  toils. 

"  Well,  sir,"  she  said  ingratiatingly,  "  the 
room  do  'appen  to  'ave  a  little  of  me  own  furni- 
ture in  it  at  present,  w'ich,  of  course,  I  was  in- 
tending to  remove  to  make  room  for  your 
things.  But  if  you  wished  it  furnis'hed  I  daresay 
I  could  do  without  'em,  an'  for  a  extra  two  shil- 
lings a  week  you  could  'ave  the  room  as  it 
stands." 

Stanton  still  hesitated.  Ten  shillings  a  week, 
plus  the  cost  of  his  food,  would,  he  felt,  quickly 
exhaust  his  capital. 

"  Per'aps  you  would  like  to  see  the  room," 


136  BORLASE   &   SON 

pursued  the  landlady  with  the  air  of  one  who 
proffers  an  unusual  concession.  "  This  way,  sir, 
if  you  please,"  and  she  hustled  him  up  a  narrow, 
steep  staircase,  covered  by  threadbare  carpet. 
This  adornment  gave  place  at  the  second  flight 
to  thin  oil-cloth,  badly  laid  and  folded  in  creases 
secured  by  tinned  tacks,  where  the  stair  turned. 
The  room  to  which  she  conducted  her  victim 
was  a  small  one,  not  very  clean.  It  had  a  piece 
of  striped  Kidderminster  carpet  on  each  side  of 
a  stump  bedstead;  a  chest  of  painted  drawers 
with  a  dull  looking-glass  on  the  top,  a  wash- 
stand,  two  odd  chairs  and  a  towel  airer,  painted, 
like  the  washstand,  in  stone  colour  with  a  green 
line  completed  the  furniture.  In  the  centre  of 
the  mantel-piece  stood  a  large  earthenware 
decoration,  representing  two  foresters  in  what 
was  doubtless  a  conventional  rendering  of 
Lincoln  green,  with  bare,  pink  legs  and  topped 
boots.  These  sylvan  warriors  supported  a 
sickly-looking  clock  face,  on  which  the  hands, 
however,  were  painted,  like  the  figures;  it  was 
not  what  Mr.  Crummies  would  have  called  a 
"  practicable  "  clock.  There  was  a  rag-carpet 
before  the  fenderless  hearth. 

The  landlady  pulled  up  the  blind  to  display 
more  advantageously  the  splendours  of  this 
apartment,  and  drew  attention  with  a  wave  of 
her  hand  to  its  furnishing,  its  decorations,  even 
the  diinaware  of  its  toilette.  Stanton  still  hesi- 
tated; but  in  the  hands  of  the  mighty,  it  is  writ- 
ten, the  youth  who  hesitates  is  lost. 

"  I  suppose  you  would  like  to  come  in  at  once, 
sir,"  said  the  proprietress. 


BORLASE   &   SON  137 

"  Oh — er — yes;  this  evening,"  said  Stanton, 
letting  himself  drift  with  the  tide.  "  I'll — er — 
get  my  box  sent  round  from — er — my  old  lodg- 
ings." 

"  Very  good,  sir,  w'enever  you  please,"  said 
the  woman.  "  You'll  find  the  room  ready  and 
clean,  as  you  see  it,  any  time.  That's  my  motto : 
ready  and  clean,  I  says,  and  then  no  one  can 
throw  your  rooms  in  your  face  " — a  reflection 
certainly  justified. 

Stanton  walked  downstairs  with  a  cautious 
hand  on  the  balusters — he  had  tripped  on  a  tear 
in  the  oil-cloth  in  coming  up.  As  he  reached  the 
entrance,  the  landlady  spoke  again;  she  was  not 
going  to  let  a  good  thing  slide  through  her 
fingers. 

''  You'll  excuse  me  mentioning  it,  sir,"  she 
said,  with  a  reproachful  intonation,  and  looking 
hard  at  Stanton's  hand,  which  was  on  the  lock. 
"  But  I  suppose  you  would-  wish  for  to  leave  the 
usual  deposit,  wouldn't  you?" 

The  desire  had  not,  as  a  fact,  attacked  Stan- 
ton;  but  he  turned  as  red  as  though  he  had  been 
detected  in  some  subtle  meanness,  and  replied: 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mrs. — er " 

"  Mrs.  Smithers,  sir,  at  your  service — only  a 
pore  widow-woman  as  you  see,  sir,"  she  added. 
Her  snuffle  added  to  Stanton's  sense  of  his  own 
meanness. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mrs.  Smithers.  I  was 
forgetting  it.  Yes,  of  course.  I — er — "  he 
fumbled  in  his  pocket  and  produced  a  sovereign. 
"  I  suppose  this  will  do?  "  he  concluded  lamely. 


138  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Oh,  certainly,  sir.  Whatever  you  wish," 
said  the  landlady.  "  Indeed,  but  for  being  a 
pore  widow-woman,  which  I  named  before,  I 
shouldn't  'ave  thought  to  have  named  it,  sir.  In 
fact  with  a  gentleman  like  yourself,"  she  added 
— as  by  an  afterthought,  when  the  money  was 
well  bestowed  in  her  own  purse — "  no  deposit 
was  needed,  only  you  appeared  to  wish  it.  Yes ; 
good  afternoon,  sir;  and  I  may  look  to  see  you 
this  evening,  sir?  " 

"  Yes;  presently,"  Stanton  absent-mindedly 
assented,  as  he  made  good  his  escape. 

The  door  closed  unobtrusively  behind  him, 
and,  relieved  at  all  events  of  the  uncertainty 
which  had  beset  him  all  day  long,  he  walked 
briskly  Suburb-wards.  It  was  nearly  dark,  and 
the  young  men  and  maidens  of  the  counter  had 
all  had  tea  when  (with  the  hansom  contumeli- 
ously  foreseen  by  Mr.  Borlase)  he  knocked  at 
the  side  door,  and  received  his  worldly  chattels 
from  the  housekeeper.  This  woman  without 
bowels  had  nothing  to  say  to  him.  She  nerv- 
ously hurried  him  off  the  premises.  For  an  in- 
stant he  caught  sight  of  Wicksted — the  only 
person  in  the  establishment  with  whom  he  had 
been  on  any  terms  of  intimacy — passing  to  the 
warehouse.  But  Wicksted  emphatically  did  not 
see  him;  and  Stanton  understood  that  he  was 
pledged  not  to  seek  his  friend's  counsel. 
So  he  left  the  house  for  the  last  time  without 
farewell  or  godspeed  of  any  sort.  He  had,  by 
means  of  a  board  outside  the  police-station,  as- 
certained the  distance  from  Borlase's  to  his  new 


BORLASE  &   SON  139 

abode;  and  the  enamelled  iron  plate  inside  the 
splash-board  of  the  cab  enabled  him  to  calculate 
the  fare.  When,  at  length  arrived  after  a  cobble- 
stony  journey,  he  had  carried  his  box  within 
doors,  he  correctly  paid  the  driver. 

"  Gawd  forgive  you,"  said  the  cabman. 

Stanton,  blushing,  went  upstairs. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  BACK  PAGE  OF  THE  NEWSPAPER 

FROM  the  cogitations  of  a  sleepless  night,  Stan- 
ton's  morning  consciousness  disentangled  two 
facts — that  he  could  hardly,  within  the  limits  of 
his  guardian's  impositions,  ask  (as  he  had  at 
first  intended)  for  employment  in  any  of  the 
wholesale  houses  from  which  Borlase  &  Com- 
pany purchased;  and  that,  even  if,  as  his  inex- 
perience conjectured,  a  walk  through  the  city 
might  discover  some  such  window-announce- 
ment as  "  Clerk  wanted  here,"  he  would  hardly 
produce  the  best  impression  on  a  personal  ap- 
plication. 

Going  forth,  however,  to  a  coffee-house  for  his 
breakfast,  and  being  there  confronted  with  a 
newspaper  (now  greasy  and  scored  with  round 
tea  marks  from  yesterday),  he  had  the  chance  to 
open  this  soiled  journal  at  "  Situations  Vacant." 
Here  indeed  his  heart  rose — to  sink  again  at  the 
frequent  mention  of  a  junior  clerk's  hire : 
"  wages,  £26  a  year."  Why,  his  room  alone  cost 
him  that — with  nothing  for  food,  nothing  for 
clothing!  How  then  did  a  junior  clerk  live? 
Nevertheless  there  came  to  him  the  warning  re- 
flection that  even  ten  shillings  a  week  would  be 
better  than  nothing,  and  that  he  might  be  driven 


BORLASE   &   SON  141 

to  such  employment  for  want  of  better.  Mean- 
time, drapers'  assistants  seemed  to  be  at  a  yet 
heavier  discount.  With  nevertheless  a  little 
encouragement  at  the  number  of  vacancies  in 
employment  of  all  kinds  apparently  existing,  he 
experienced  a  heavy  dubiousness  as  to  his  own 
prospect  of  being  allowed  to  fulfil  any  of  them. 
When  he  had  scanned  the  whole  alphabetic 
column — all  the  way  down  to  "  Warehousemen 
Wanted,"  "  Xylonite  moulder  Required,"  and 
"  Young  Man  (sharp)  for  the  Bar  " — of  refresh- 
ment, not  of  Law — he  came  upon  a  fresh  source 
of  perturbation.  For  the  "  Situations  Wanted  " 
were,  if  less  numerous,  even  more  discouraging, 
than  the  employments  vacant.  The  services 
proffered  in  this  portion  of  the  newspaper  so 
uniformly  accommodated  the  requirements  of 
the  former,  and  the  stipends  mentioned  were  so 
humbly  modest,  that  Stanton  found  it  difficult  to 
divine  why  questing  employers  did  not  seek 
out  advertising  work-people,  instead  of  flaunt- 
ing their  own  needs  expensively  at  three  lines 
a  shilling.  Nevertheless,  there  was  here  some- 
thing practical;  he  had  found  something  he 
could  do,  and  hastily  gulping  down  the  nourish- 
ing coffee  and  distasteful  bread  of  the  place,  he 
sped  forth,  to  return  presently  to  his  bedroom 
with  paper,  envelopes,  a  shillingsworth  of 
stamps,  and  three  newspapers. 

With  these  he  sate  him  down,  to  discover, 
when  he  had  cleared  the  dressing-table  for  his 
purpose,  that  he  still  lacked  pens  and  ink,  and 
must  go  out  again  to  buy  them — at  a  cheap  rate 


142  BORLASE   &   SON 

and  of  a  highly  displeasing  quality.  Returning, 
he  addressed  himself  to  a  dozen  of  the  least  dis- 
couraging advertisers,  and  having  presently 
scented  a  conceivable  advantage  in  being  first 
in  the  field  with  his  applications,  he  picked  out 
those  letters  which  were  not,  by  advertisement, 
addressed  to  newspaper-boxes,  and  carried  them 
himself  to  the  city,  trying  on  the  way,  as  his 
custom  was  when  he  had  any  interview  in  an- 
ticipation, to  picture  the  sort  of  questions  he 
might  be  called  upon  to  answer,  to-morrow, 
should  his  plea  for  an  "  appointment "  to  call 
be  somewhere  successful. 

The  addresses  in  the  advertisements  afforded 
little  clue,  or  oftener  none,  to  the  businesses  pur- 
sued by  the  advertisers.  The  most  promising 
of  all  of  them  led  him  up  four  flights  of  stairs 
to  a  dusty  room  where  a  shirt-sleeved  man  with 
a  large  nose,  sate  with  his  feet  on  the  table  and 
over  a  cigar  stared  inquiringly  at  Stanton  as  he 
delivered  'his  letter.  A  tape-machine  ticking  in 
the  corner, was  the  only  business-like  object  in 
the  room.  A  curt  "Clerk  wanted ;  apply  by  letter 
in  own  writing  to  D.,  Asterisk  Street,"  on  the 
other  hand,  proved  to  emanate  from  a  vast  drug 
firm,  in  whose  office  something  like  a  hundred 
clerks,  row  behind  row,  crowded  and  incon- 
ceivably shabby,  were  writing  for  dear  life,  in- 
terrupted by  warehousemen  in  black  aprons  here 
and  there  burned  red  with  acids,  who  made  their 
way  between  the  serried  ranks,  to  grab  at 
bundles  of  invoices  and  hurry  away  again.  Stan- 
ton  was  accidentally  met  by  a  stout  man  with  a 


BORLASE   &   SON  143 

vast  watch  chain,  who  took  his  letter  with  a 
"  Wait  a  bit;  what's  this?  "  and  read  the  enve- 
lope through  a  pair  of  eyeglasses  held  in  his 
hand. 

"Oh,"  said  this  personage,  "so  you're  the  first 
man  after  the  job,  are  you?  " 

Stanton  did  not  reply.  "  You  can  come  in. 
I'll  dispose  of  you  at  once,"  pursued  the  man- 
ager, and  led  the  way  to  a  match-boarded  room, 
with  a  Turkey  carpet,  threadbare  and  ill-swept, 
and  a  large  coke  fire,  much  too  hot.  He  sate 
down  and  pointed  to  a  chair,  while  he  read  Stan- 
ton's  letter  half  aloud,  punctuated  with  remarks 
of  his  own :  "  H'm — '  some  months  in  large  re- 
tail establishment' — what's  the  good  of  that? — 
'  educated' — h'm — 'book-keeping/  *  certificates 
of  proficiency  ' — who  cares  for  certificates  ? — 
'  good  reference  from  my  late  employer  ' — that's 
more  to  the  point.  Er — why  did  you  leave  the 
large  retail  establishment,  John  Stanton?  " 

The  speaker  had  put  the  gold  eyeglasses  low 
on  his  nose,  and  threw  back  his  head  so  as  to 
see  Stanton  through  them.  He  had  a  loud  voice 
and  a  manner  that  his  equals  may  have  thought 
jovial.  "  That's  the  chief  point,"  he  added. 

"  My  guardian — that  is,  I  mean — I  wished  to 
gain  experience  in  the  wholesale,"  Stanton  said 
in  a  low  voice. 

"  Speak  up,  man !  I  can't  hear  you.  You 
wished  to  gain  experience,  eh?  Then  I  suppose 
you  don't  expect  much  money.  Well,  your  writ- 
ing is  all  right,  if  you  can  write  fast.  What 
'  screw  '  do  you  ask  for?  " 


144  BORLASE   &    SON 

"  I  should  be  satisfied  with — with  a  pound;  to 
begin  with,"  Stanton  replied. 

The  manager  crushed  his  letter  into  a  ball 
and  threw  it  into  the  fire.  "  Well,  you're  soon 
settled,"  'he  said  with  a  laugh.  "  A  pound  a 
week.  Good  God !  You  must  expect  a  head 
clerkship !  A  pound  a  week  ?  Why,  young  man, 
I  can  get  Germans,  thirty  years  old,  well  edu- 
cated— know  French  and  been  to  Universities — 
for  ten  bob;  dam'  glad  of  the  work,  too;  and 
beautiful  writers  at  that.  What  do  you  waste 
my  time  with  such  puppy-talk  as  this  for  ?  Here, 
good-day.  I'll  send  for  you  when  I  want  a 
general  manager.  You're  too  steep  in  your 
ideas  for  a  clerk." 

Stanton,  whom  the  fire  was  making  sick  and 
uncomfortable,  slunk  out,  red  and  alarmed.  He 
delivered  his  remaining  letters  furtively,  drop- 
ping them  into  the  door-box  whenever  he  could 
find  one,  and  placing  them  on  a  counter  and 
hastily  getting  away,  when  he  could  not. 

The  next  day  he  spent  in  idleness,  the  harsh 
lesson  of  repeated  failure  not  yet  having  taught 
him  how  safely  he  might  multiply  his  applica- 
tions. In  the  evening  a  couple  of  advertisers, 
attracted  by  his  admirable  penmanship,  had 
curtly  intimated  that  he  might  call  next  morn- 
ing. To  'his  twelve  letters,  these  two  proved  the 
sole  response.  He  waited  upon  his  correspond- 
ents punctually.  His  pitiable  nervousness  would 
have  acted  against  him  in  any  event,  and  though 
by  good  fortune  he  met  with  kindly  and  reassur- 


BORLASE   &   SON  145 

ing  treatment  at  both  places,  he  met  with  noth- 
ing else  that  was  encouraging  to  his  desires. 

Indeed  he  met  with  everything  which  could 
well  add  to  his  growing  despair,  for  a  pound  a 
week,  the  least  sum  which,  even  with  the  sever- 
est economies,  the  most  ingenious  retrench- 
ments, offered  to  his  imagination  the  desired 
possibility  of  maintaining  his  capital,  seemed 
ludicrously  out  of  reach.  The  University-taught 
German  at  half  that  sum  was  not,  indeed,  again 
quoted  to  him;  but  he  had  it  conveyed  that  fifty 
pounds  a  year  was  the  reward,  if  not  of  long  ser- 
vice, at  least  of  riper  experience  than  he  could 
muster ;  and  before  a  week  had  supervened  upon 
his  struggles  he  was  considering  that,  supposing 
his  clothes  to  last  a  year,  he  might  make  do,  for 
current  expenses,  with  fifteen  shillings. 

He  also  began  to  look  for  cheaper  lodgings; 
for  Mrs.  Smithers'  "  bill "  remorselessly  con- 
sumed his  sovereign  deposit.  A  week,  that  lady 
informed  him,  dated,  of  course,  from  Saturday 
to  Saturday;  he  had  hence  nothing  to  gain  by 
the  two  days  which  had  passed  before  his  ar- 
rival; and  there  was,  she  allowed  him  to  know, 
"  service"  to  be  paid  for;  had  she  not,  in  addi- 
tion to  lending  him  furniture  on  terms  which 
her  tone  abundantly  told  him  were  ridiculously 
low,  punctually  dusted  the  said  furniture  daily — 
to  the  distraction  of  his  letter-writing?  Had  she 
not  "  answered  "  the  frequent  postman  ?  And 
could  he — she  put  it  to  him  (she  said)  as  a  gen- 
tlemen and  a  man  of  the  world — could  he  expect 
a  latch-key  made  under  half-a-crown  ? 
10 


146  BORLASE   &   SON 

Stanton  in  despair  made  a  sort  of  stand  at  the 
"  service  item."  "  Look  here,"  he  said,  "  I'm  not 
very  well  off  at  present,  Mrs.  Smithers " 

"  Which  is  no  discredit  to  anyone,"  inter- 
rupted the  landlady.  "  Never  judge  a  man  by 
'is  coat  is  my  motter." 

*VA.nd,"  he  pursued  nervously,  "  as  I've  plenty 
of  time  on  my  hands,  unfortunately,  I  think  I'll 
'  do '  my  room  myself — just  for  the  present." 

Mrs.  Smithers  protested.  It  would  hurt  her, 
she  said,  to  "  have  "  a  young  gentleman,  which 
anyone  could  see  was  a  gentleman,  and  so 
brought  up,  though  rejuiced,  which  was  no  dis- 
credit, lower  hisself  to  menial  work.  That  pov- 
erty is  no  crime,  was,  she  added,  her  motto.  She 
appeared  to  have  been  endowed  with  such  an 
abundance  of  these  maxims  as  might  have  done 
credit  to  Sancho  Panza.  "  And  rather  than 
that,"  she  concluded,  warming  to  her  subject, 
"  rather  than  that,  Mr.  Stanton,  I  shall  do  it  for 
one-and-sixpence,  which  is  less  than  half.  Say 
no  more,  sir ;  no — I  don't  want  no  thanks.  Kind- 
ness is  its  own  reward — that's  my  motter;  and  I 
wouldn't  year  a  word  of  thanks — no,  sir,  not 
if  you  was  to  say  'em  with  your  bended  knees  " 
— and  she  hastily  withdrew,  that  Stanton  might 
not  utter  in  that  strange  way  the  refusal  which 
Mrs.  Smithers'  voluble  discourse  had  already 
twice  cut  short. 

So,  with  a  sigh,  he  conned  his  budget  afresh; 
and  on  Sunday  morning  went  out  to  reconnoitre 
fresh  lodgments.  His  steps,  by  some  inadvert- 
ence, led  him  to  Camberwell  Green,  and  he  en- 


BORLASE   &    SON  147 

tered  that  uninviting  enclosure  to  sit  awhile  and 
rest  his  tired  feet.  Here,  while  he  gazed  with 
his  ineffectual  intentness  at  the  grass  before  him, 
at  the  twisted  wire  of  the  rail,  and  the  horrid  lit- 
tle neat  flower-beds  which  it  protected,  he  heard 
his  name,  in  a  voice  sweetly  feminine,  and,  ris- 
ing, found  himself  in  the  presence  of  Mrs. 
Wicksted. 

It  should  have  been  related,  that  in  Stanton's 
Borlase  days,  Wicksted  had  once  or  twice,  as 
their  intimacy  grew,  taken  him  home.  Mr.  Bor- 
lase, as  both  tacitly  conceived,  would  highly  have 
disapproved ;  it  was  his  patron's  menacing  per- 
sonality in  the  background  that  Mrs.  Wicksted's 
startling  address  now  vividly  recalled  to  Stan- 
ton.  He  rose,  and  awkwardly  raised  his  soft  hat 
— a  fashion  of  headgear  he  had  copied  to  his  dis- 
advantage from  Mrs.  Wicksted's  husband. 

The  sombre  ascendency  which  Mr.  Borlase 
exercised  over  his  dependants,  in  consequence 
perhaps  of  his  apparent  omniscience  in  the  shop 
(where  no  smallest  defect  escaped  merited  re- 
proof), was  perhaps  never  better  indicated  than 
in  the  cloud  of  dubiety  which  stood  between 
these  two  at  the  present  moment.  Stanton  knew 
very  well  that  Wicksted  had  been  forbidden  to 
meet  him,  and  Mrs.  Wicksted  (from  whom  her 
husband  had  neither  secrets  nor  separate  inter- 
ests) knew  it,  too.  Mr.  Borlase  had  given  as  a 
reason  for  his  decree  that  he  wished  his  ward  to 
be  absolutely  independent ;  he  had  intimated  his 
commands  with  some  emphasis.  A  sort  of  guilty 
apprehension  trammelled  both  their  minds. 


148  BORLASE   &   SON 

It  was  not  that  Mr.  Borlase  was  likely  to  be  at 
hand,  overlooking  them;  but  simply  that  the 
habit  of  fearful  obedience  to  his  iron  will  had 
become  inherent.  Stanton  would  have  liked  to 
pass  on  in  silence;  his  fear  of  Borlase  was  nat- 
urally the  more  recent,  the  more  acute.  Mrs. 
Wicksted  stayed  him,  and  presented  a  plump 
hand  to  his  acceptance. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Borlase?"  she  said, 
and  added,  in  a  cant  phrase  of  the  moment, 
"  Fancy  meeting  you !  Philip  has  gone  across 
to  the  tobacco  shop.  Well,  I  am  pleased  to  see 
you." 

Stanton's  eyes  thanked  her.  His  need  of  sym- 
pathy was  tempting  him.  "  I  am  awfully  glad, 
too,"  he  said.  "  I  haven't  seen  a  soul  for  a 
week !  You  know  I've  left  the — the  shop?  " 

"  Yes.  Philip  told  me,"  she  replied.  "  What 
a  funny  arrangement !  " 

The  arrangement  had  seemed  to  Stanton,  one 
may  divine,  almost  anything  but  humourous. 
"  It's  rather  hard  lines  though,  isn't  it,  Mrs. 
Wicksted?"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Wicksted  sniffed;  her  private  abhorrence 
of  Mr.  Borlase,  for  all  her  polite  dissembling, 
was  no  secret.  "  For  the  matter  of  that,"  Stan- 
ton  continued,  with  a  weak  smile,  "  I  suppose 
I  must — er — say  good-bye — run  away,  you 
know.  My — Mr.  Borlase  told  me  I  was  not  to 
communicate  with  any  one  in  the  shop;  and  I 
don't  want  to  get  Wicksted  into  a  row." 

That  gentleman's  spouse  sniffed  again ;  it  is  an 
unmannerly  practice,  but  not  without  expres- 
siveness. "  I'm  not  Philip,"  she  remarked  un- 


BORLASE   &   SON  149 

dutifully ;  "  and  I'm  not  in  the  shop.  I  daresay," 
she  added,  with  implication,  "  that  he  has  his 
eyes  everywhere  "  (and  it  was  not  of  Mr.  Wick- 
sted's  eyes  that  She  was  evidently  speaking); 
"  but  I  believe  this  is  a  free  country.  And  Philip 
always  says,  '  outside  of  the  shop/  he  says,  *  I'm 
my  own  master,  and  those  who  give  me  orders 
in  the  shop/  he  says,  '  can  keep  their  orders 
to  theirselves.  My  house  is  my  own.'  And  you 
can  put  that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it,  Mr. 
Stanton  Borlase,"  She  conclude'd  with  kindly 
severity,  which  left  him  the  intimation  that  he 
would  find  that  house  ever  so  hospitably  open  to 
him  if  he  chose  to  call.  She  even  explicitly  in- 
vited him  to  do  so.  "  Look  here,"  she  said,  "  no 
one  can  throw  it  in  his  face  that  Philip  asked 
you;  but  you  just  come  quietly  round  in  half  an 
hour — and  no  one  the  wiser — and  have  dinner 
with  me.  Philip — "  Wicksted  had  come  up,  and 
she  hurriedly  finished  her  sentence  before  he 
could  take  Stanton's  hand,  standing  between  the 
two  men  as  s'he  spoke.  "  Philip !  You  know 
very  well  you  mustn't  speak  to  Mr.  Borlase ;  go 
away.  I've  asked  him  to  come  to  dinner — with 
me.  You  will  be  there,"  she  added  with  her 
subtlest  look,  "  if  you  like;  you  aren't  obliged  to 
come  if  you  don't  like.  For  all  /  know  you  may 
be  goin'  out.  You  haven't  asked  anyone.  It's 
me.  See?"  The  dear  woman  endeavoured, 
rather  unsuccessfully,  to  wink. 

"Oh,  I  say  you  know,"  said  Wicksted,  shak- 
ing hands  cordially  with  Stanton  in  spite  of  her. 
"That's  too  clever.  But  you  will  come,  won't 
you,  Borlase?  Just  as  well  not  to  stand  jawing 


150  BORLASE   &   SON 

here,"  he  admitted,  with  a  furtive  glance  around 
'him;  "  but  you  come  round  on  the  quiet.  Damn 
it,"  he  added,  "  a  man's  house  is  his  castle  after 
all,  and  I've  a  perfect  legal  right  to  ask  whom  I 
please ! " 

"  Don't  I  tell  you  you  haven't  asked  anyone  ?  " 
Mrs.  Wicksted  protested.  "  It's  me.  They 
can't  sack  me — now — thank  goodness !  "  And 
her  mind,  perhaps,  strayed  back  to  the  time 
when  she  could  be,  and  had  been,  dismissed — 
friendless  and  at  midnight, — from  the  employ- 
ment of  Borlase  &  Company,  which  is  written  in 
another  place,  and  is  not  a  pleasant  story. 

"  I  wish  awfully  I  could  come,"  said  Stanton. 
"  I  should  be  glad  of  your  advice,  Wicksted, 
though  apparently  I  oughtn't  to  have  it.  But 
I  don't  think  I  can  come." 

"  You  haven't  been  made  to  pledge  yourself 
not  to,  have  you  ?  "  Philip  asked  gravely. 

"  Not  exactly  that,"  said  Stanton,  wavering. 
"  Only  I'm  afraid — if  anything  came  out,  don't 
you  know — you  see  ?  " 

"  Oh,  skittles,"  said  Wicksted  heartily. 
"  We're  not  slaves.  It's  ten  times  riskier,  stand- 
ing here.  You  come,  old  chap.  I  don't  care 
what's  said.  Come.  And  go  now — see  ?  " 

And  Stanton,  his  need  too  great  perhaps  for 
his  consciousness  of  his  friend's  danger,  agreed. 
He  shook  hands  ceremoniously  with  both,  raised 
his  hat  again  to  Mrs.  Wicksted,  and  walked 
briskly  away,  looking  nervously  on  all  sides  as 
he  went.  For  always  in  the  background  of  his 
consciousness  the  vast  personality  of  Mr.  Bor- 
lase implacably  threatened. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  WICKSTEDS  AT  HOME 

MR.  and  Mrs.  Wicksted  walked  home  together 
in  an  unaccustomed  silence.  For  them  also  there 
was  always  this  dominant  figure  threatening  in 
the  background.  It  is  to  misconceive  almost 
grossly  the  parts  of  master  and  servant,  to  think 
of  their  relation,  in  the  economist's  jargon,  as 
a  contract,  mutual  and  free.  The  mere  power 
of  arbitrary  dismissal  under  which  he  labours 
makes  the  unskilled  man  a  slave.  It  is  with 
quite  possible  starvation  that  his  offences  can  be 
visited;  and  his  fears  are  in  direct  ratio  to  his 
station.  The  Wicksteds  had  a  home,  furniture, 
an  interest  in  life,  and  wages  above  the  ordinary 
emolument  of  shop-folk.  It  lay  within  the  pos- 
sibilities of  Mr.  Borlase's  anger  to  deprive  them 
of  all  these  things ;  for  the  slow  search  for  fresh 
work  would  eat  up  their  home,  and  end,  at  the 
best,  very  likely  in  a  greatly  inferior  employ- 
ment. Little  wonder  that  they  were  grave,  as 
they  walked,  flouting  this  giant  power — little 
wonder,  indeed,  if  fear  had  proved  stronger  than 
their  kindliness. 

But  in  their  tiny  sitting-room — bordered  on 
one  side  by  shelves  of  Philip's  making,  where  his 
well-thumbed  books  were  ranged,  a  curious 


152  BORLASE   &   SON 

medley  of  cheap  editions  and  second-hand 
trouvailles — they  spoke.  Before  Philip  could  lay 
aside  hat  and  walking-stick,  his  wife  threw  her 
arms  round  his  neck,  and  kissed  him  hard  on  the 
mouth.  Then,  with  her  hands  still  clasped  be- 
hind him,  she  looked  tenderly  and  proudly  into 
his  eyes.  "  Oh,  Phil !  I  love  you !  "  she  said, 
and  was  understood.  He  patted  her  plump  arm 
soothingly  and  with  reassurance.  "  Why,  who's 
to  know  ?  "  he  said. 

"Oh,  Phil!  I  knew  it  was  all  right  to  ask 
him !  "  she  exclaimed. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  he  answered  gravely, 
holding  her.  "  It  was  just  like  you.  I  don't 
know — if  there's  any  fault,  Edie,  it's  mine.  Per- 
haps I  oug"ht  to  have  thought  more  of  you — of 
the  risk  for  you  I  mean — and  put  him  off.  It 
would  press  so  hard  on  you,  old  girl,  if — if  any- 
thing happened.  But  I  love  you  for  wanting 
to  have  him !  " 

"  And  do  you  think  I  don't  love  you  for  letting 
him  come?  "  she  cried,  passionately.  "  Phil,  I'd 
rather  starve  with  you  than  have  you  different. 
Think,  Phil!  If  you  hadn't  been  brave — my 
brave  Phil ! — just  as  you  always  are,  we'd  never 
have  had  each  other  at  all !  " 

"  No,  no,  old  girl !  It's  you  that  were  brave," 
he  said.  "  It's  always  worse  for  you.  I  could 
have  shifted,  easy  enough,  in  those  days.  It 
wasn't  like  now,  when  I've  got  a  position  in  a 
hundred." 

"And  I'd  chance  it  a  hundred  times,  before 
I'd  have  you  different !  "  she  said,  and  kissed 


BORLASE  &   SON  153 

him  again.  "  Come,  let  me  go,  you  great  spoon, 
and  get  dinner  ready !  " 

He  gave  'her  another  little  hug  before  he 
would  release  her,  and  patted  her  arm  again. 
"  Eh  ?  What's  the  time  ?  "  he  said.  "  Past  one. 
Well,  I'll  go  and  get  the  beer."  And  he  put 
his  soft  'hat  on  the  back  of  his  head  and  went 
out  again,  with  a  white  jug. 

Mrs.  Wicksted  laid  dinner  in  this  same  sitting- 
room,  honouring  their  guest,  and  sent  her  hus- 
band, presently,  to  the  baker's  for  the  joint — by 
the  back-door  because  Stanton  had  arrived  in 
the  meantime.  "  You  must  excuse  us,  Mr.  Bor- 
lase,  for  a  few  minutes,"  she  said.  "  We  poor 
people  have  to  do  our  own  work,  you  know ! " 
Thus,  it  was  only  when  they  sate  down  to  table, 
and  Philip  was  "  carving,"  that  Stanton  found 
opportunity  to  apologise  for  what  his  reflec- 
tions in  the  meantime  had  displayed  to  him  in 
the  light  of  a  rather  selfish  temerity. 

"  You  know  I'm  ashamed  of  myself  for  being 
here,"  he  said,  in  his  timid  way.  "  I've  no  right 
to  involve  you  in  danger,  Wicksted.  I  oughtn't 
to  have  come." 

"  That  be  hanged,"  said  Wicksted,  who  had 
just  come  to  the  end  of  his  work,  and  was  pass- 
ing his  plate  for  cabbage.  "  And  please  don't 
say  any  more  about  it,  or  I  shall  think  you're 
sorry  you  have  come.  Besides,"  he  added, 
touching  his  wife's  hand,  and  giving  it  a  little 
squeeze  of  intelligence  as  he  said  so,  "  we  get 
a  good  deal  of  pleasure  from  your  company — 
and  some  more  besides." 


154  BORLASE   &   SON 

"What  do  you  mean?"  Stanton  inquired, 
looking  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  Oh,  don't  pay  any  attention  to  Phil's  non- 
sense," said  Mrs.  Wicksted ;  "  he's  always  gam- 
moning." But  Stanton  saw  them  look  into  each 
other's  eyes,  and,  perhaps,  had  some  intuition 
of  the  happy  mystery  they  hid  from  him. 

Stanton's  position ;  why  he  was  "  turned 
away;"  and  in  what,  if  in  anything,  he  had  of- 
fended his  guardian,  had  been  a  subject  of  dis- 
cussion all  the  week;  one  hates  oneself  for  think- 
ing that  perhaps  this  natural  curiosity  had  its 
part  in  making  Mrs.  Wicksted  accost  him  that 
morning.  She  had  her  own  inferences  and  in- 
tuitions on  the  subject.  "  Depend  upon  it,"  the 
admirable  woman  had  said  to  her  husband,  "  de- 
pend upon  it,  the  old  beast  finds  it  doesn't  suit 
his  book  to  have  a  sharp  young  man  like  that 
about  the  place.  He'd  see  too  much."  It  was  in 
terms  of  such  reprehensible  disrespect  that  Mrs. 
Wicksted  only  too  often  had  occasion  to  refer  to 
her  former  patron. 

"  Oh,  nonsense.  Fiddle-de-dee,  there's  noth- 
ing to  know  that  he  hasn't  known  long  ago." 

"  I  don't  know  so  much  about  that,"  said 
Edith  mysteriously;  "nor,"  she  added  with  fresh 
obscurity,  "  do  you  either.  Mark  my  words." 
It  was  a  theory  of  this  sort — for  which  very 
likely  Mrs.  Wicksted's  recollections  may,  as  she 
implied,  have  furnished  more  ample  grounds 
than  her  husband's — that  confronted  Stanton, 
more  or  less  tacitly,  in  Edith's  questions  at  din- 
ner time.  He  related  his  last  conversation  with 


BORLASE   &   SON  155 

Mr.  Borlase,  and  treated  that  pillar  of  society, 
I  am  bound  to  tell  you,  with  a  very  judicial  fair- 
ness. "  It's  awfully  hard  on  a  chap,"  he  said. 
"  But  I'm  sure  the  governor  meant  it  for  my 
good.  He  has  the  rummiest  notions,  don't  you 
know!" 

"  Good  for  you  to  be  turned  out  into  the 
world,  without  a  soul  to  speak  to,  eh?"  said 
Stanton's  militant  hostess,  incredulously. 

"  Because  he  had  had  to  make  his  own  way, 
don't  you  see,"  Stanton  explained. 

"  And  tried  to  prevent  you  picking  up  a  word 
or  hint  from  them  that  could  give  you  a  tip  ?  " 

"  It's  part  of  the  system,  I  suppose,"  said  poor 
Stanton — obliged,  as  it  seemed,  to  apologise  for 
his  own  wrongs. 

"  I  don't  like  Mr.  Borlase's  ideas  of  what's 
good  for  people,"  Mrs.  Wicksted  snapped  out; 
"  and  I  don't  care — no,  Phil,  I  won't  shut  up— I 
don't  care  who  knows  it,  so  there ! "  The  last 
words  were  spoken  in  difficulties,  Wicksted,  who 
had  risen  to  carry  out  the  last  of  the  plates,  hav- 
ing put  his  hand  across  her  mouth.  She  fol- 
lowed her  husband  to  the  kitchen,  again  apolo- 
gising for  the  guest's  momentary  isolation. 
Thus  it  was  only  when  Wicksted  had  brought 
out  a  pipe  and  tobacco,  that  Stanton's  doings  of 
the  past  week  came  into  discussion.  There  was 
in  fact  another  delay.  Stanton,  as  one  of  his 
economies,  had  given  up  smoking;  but  Wicksted 
insisted  on  rolling  him  a  cigarette  in  paper  pro- 
vided by  cutting  up  the  protecting  tissue  before 
the  frontispiece  of  a  book  of  poems. 


156  BORLASE   &   SON 

Then  did  Stanton  tell  the  story  of  his  search 
for  lodgment  and  work;  and  Wicksted,  puffing 
at  a  vast  brier,  cross-questioned  him  with  some 
keenness  before  he  offered  comment.  He  even 
was  at  the  trouble  of  silencing  Edith's  immi- 
nent indignation  as  certain  figures  were  named. 
At  the  end,  however,  and  when  his  questions  had 
already  conveyed  to  Stanton  a  frequent  disap- 
proval, he  said,  gravely : 

"  You're  being  swindled,  old  chap.  That  rent 
is  out  of  all  reason;  and  I  wager  the  rooms  were 
always  let  furnished." 

"  As  for  '  attendance,'  I  never  heard  of  such  a 
thing,"  added  Mrs.  Wicksted,  with  difficulty  re- 
strained up  to  now.  "  Furnished  lodgings  al- 
ways include  attendance." 

"  Ye — es.  I'm  afraid  you've  been  a  little  too 
easy-going,"  said  Wicksted. 

"  Another  thing,"  interrupted  his  wife.  "  I 
should  like  to  know  what  she  gives  you  for 
breakfast.  Boiled  tea  and  dripping,  I  shouldn't 
wonder." 

"  I  get  my  breakfast  at  a  coffee  shop,"  said 
Stanton,  mildly. 

"  What !  And  pay  that  rent  ?  "  Mrs.  Wick- 
sted's  indignation  broke  out  afresh.  "  The  wo- 
man ought  to  be  put  in  gaol,"  she  decided.  "  I'd 
fetch  a  policeman  to  her  if  7  were  in  your  shoes." 

"  Oh,  nonsense,  my  dear,"  said  Philip,  who 
numbered  a  certain  appetite  for  the  science  of 
jurisprudence  among  his  many  incongruous 
tastes.  "  It  isn't  illegal  to  charge  too  much 
rent — else  where  would  the  Irish  landlords  be  ?  " 


BORLASE   &   SON  157 

*'  All  the  same,  I'd  fetch  one,"  said  Mrs.  Wick- 
sted  with  conviction — still,  presumably,  mean- 
ing a  policeman.  "  I'd  just  teach  'em  a  lesson," 
she  said,  regarding  the  invocation  of  the  law  as 
vaguely  punitive  in  itself. 

"  No.  Your  remedy  is  to  get  out,"  said  Wick- 
sted ;  "  and  find  a  decent  place.  Eight  bob  a 
week  ought  to  give  you  a  furnished  room  and 
your  breakfast.  If  you  go  the  right  way  about 
it,  you  ought  to  get  an  egg  or  a  kipper,  at  that. 
Try  Dussex  Street,  or  some  of  those  places  in 
Walworth;  and  don't  choose  a  slatternly  house; 
it  won't  be  any  cheaper  for  that.  Go  and  look  at 
a  lot  of  'em;  they  can't  eat  you.  It's  their 
business  to  show  their  rooms.  And  make  '  no 
extras '  a  feature  of  the  bargain,  whatever  you 
do — else  you'll  have  sixpence  a  week  for  this, 
sixpence  for  that,  and  goodness  knows  what  all. 
Look  here — if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so — 
you're  a  little  too  tender  about  sticking  up  for 
yourself.  You  must  kick.  Don't  put  up  with 
just  everything.  It  don't  pay  in  this  wicked 
world." 

"  What  notice  must  I  give  Where  I  am?  "  in- 
quired Stanton. 

"  If  it  was  me,  I  shouldn't  give  any  notice  at 
all,  after  the  way  you've  been  done,"  said  Wick- 
sted;  "  but,"  he  added,  with  a  kindly  understand- 
ing of  the  lad's  timidity,  "  perhaps  you'll  be  more 
comfortable  if  you  tell  her  when  you  get  in  to- 
night that  you'll  leave  on  Saturday.  It'll  save 
you  a  row,  most  likely." 

"  Oh,  she  isn't  the  sort  of  woman  to  make  a 


158  BORLASE   &   SON 

row,"  said  Stanton,  the  inexperienced.  "  She 
always  seems  anxious  to  be  obliging." 

"  I  wouldn't  be  too  sure,"  said  Wicksted, 
laughing.  "These  people  pretty  soon  alter  their 
tone  when  they  see  there's  no  more  to  be  got 
out  of  you.  But  you  stick  up  for  yourself. 
That's  my  advice  to  you." 

And  it  was,  indeed,  with  a  full  determination 
to  "  stick  up  "  for  himself  that  Stanton  pres- 
ently went  home,  and  communicated  his  in- 
tentions to  Mrs.  Smithers  in  the  passage. 

"  Oh,  indeed?  "  said  that  lady,  bridling,  when 
he  had  done  so.  "  Well,  I  must  say  as  I  didn't 
look  for  this,  Mr.  Stanton.  Though,"  she  added, 
moralising,  as  it  appeared,  on  life  in  general. 
"  it's  no  more  than  one  looks  for  after  putting 
oneself  out  for  anyone — especially  being  a  pore 
widow,  with  no  one,  of  course,  to  say  a  word." 
Stanton  felt,  as  he  was  intended  to  feel,  like  a 
rather  ill-behaved  ogre. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  "  if  I  hurt  your  feelings, 
Mrs.  Smithers;  but  you  see  I've  got  my  own 
pocket  to  consider,  and  the  fact  is  that  I  can  see 
I've  got  to  spend  less  money.  Otherwise,"  he 
weakly  concluded,  "  of  course,  I  shouldn't  think 
of  giving  you  notice." 

"  No;  of  course,  one  doesn't  look  for  nothing 
else,"  Mrs.  Smithers  repeated  implacably. 
"  Blessed,"  she  added ;  "  is  them  that  expecks 
nothink  is  my  motter.  From  next  Saturday,  I 
suppose,  Mr.  Stanton." 

"  To  next  Saturday,"  Stanton  corrected  her, 
set,  in  Wicksted's  phrase,  on  "  sticking  up  "  for 
himself.  "  I  understand  that  is  usual." 


BORLASE   &   SON  159 

"Usual?"  said  Mrs.  Smithers  with  indigna- 
tion. "  Usual  ?  Indeed,  in  my  little  bit  of  ex- 
perience, being  as  is  natural  to  a  pore  widow 
woman,  with  no  protectors,  I  presume  a  little 
older  than  you,  sir — in  my  experience  a  week  is 
a  week,  and  I  don't  think  as  Sunday  evenin'  is 
Saturday  night;  and  a  week's  notice,  accordin' 
to  my  'umble  opinion,  is  a  week's  notice." 

"  You  forget,  however,"  said  Stanton,  who 
had  turned  very  red,  but  who  was  fortified  in 
this  argument  by  the  recollection  of  some  re- 
marks by  Wicksted,  "  that  I  didn't  come  in  until 
Tuesday  night,  and  that  you  charged  me  for  a 
full  week.  Consequently,  I  could  give  you  no- 
tice on  Tuesday,  if  I  wished." 

"  W'ich  in  my  young  days,"  said  Mrs.  Smith- 
ers, who  now  positively  towered  in  her  wrath, 
"  in  them  days,  Mr.  Stanton,  a  week  begun  on  a 
Saturday.  I've  no  doubt,  wot  with  schoolbores 
and  things,  as  all  that  is  altered  now;  but  how- 
sumever,  Mr.  Stanton,  I  shall  thank  you  not  to 
remove  your  goods  until  you  have  paid  me  a 
week's  notice  or  a  week's  rent  from  next  Satur- 
day, or  I'll  be  obliged  to  put  the  law  into  motion. 
And  I  shall  thank  you,  sir,  for  my  week's  rent 
and  attendance  for  this  week,  accordin'  to  ar- 
rangement." 

"  I've  no  objection,"  said  Stanton,  taking  out 
his  purse;  "  though  for  that  matter,  I  don't  rec- 
ollect any  such " 

"  Did  you,  or  did  you  not,  insist  on  paying  of 
a  deposit  for  to  secure  my  room,"  interrupted 
Mrs.  Smithers,  raising  her  voice.  "  Did  you,  or 


160  BORLASE   &    SON 

did  you  not,  engage  my  rooms,  Mr.  Stanton? 
Answer  me  that,  if  you  please.  An'  very  glad  at 
the  time,  I  must  say,  to  come  into  the  comfort- 
able, clean  apartments,  with  all  the  comforts 
of  an  'ome,  w'ich  now  you  think  proper  to  throw 
in  my  face." 

Stanton  hastily  thrust  the  money  into  her 
hand — he  providentially  had  some  change  this 
time — and  fled  incontinently  upstairs,  followed 
by  reproaches  that  brought  the  other  lodgers  to 
their  doors  to  gape  at  him  as  he  passed.  He 
was  hot,  disgusted  with  his  own  weakness, 
ashamed  and  abashed  by  the  landlady's  indig- 
nant protests,  notwithstanding  that  he  knew 
himself  very  well  in  the  right,  and  on  all  grounds 
inconceivably  wretched.  He  was  determined, 
however,  come  what  might,  to  leave  on  Satur- 
day, and  he  foresaw  a  worse  rating  then;  he 
viewed  with  dismay  the  prospect  of  what  her 
sharp  tongue,  alternating  pathos  and  anger, 
might  have  in  store  for  him,  every  morning, 
when  she  should  "  do  "  his  room. 

As  to  this,  he  might  have  spared  himself  some 
anxiety.  Mrs.  Smithers  having  obtained  in  ad- 
vance, with  the  rent,  her  additional  extortion  for 
"  attendance,"  troubled  him  no  more  with  her 
presence,  and  whatever  cares — down  to  the 
meanest — were  bestowed  on  his  room  that 
week,  were  the  work  of  Stanton's  own  hands. 
He  sought,  where  Wicksted  had  advised,  fresh 
lodgings,  and  after  visiting  several  houses,  and 
discovering  the  experience,  after  all,  not  so 
dreadful  as  it  had  seemed,  found  at  the  lower  end 


BORLASE   &   SON  161 

of  Dussex  Street  a  clean,  plainly  furnished  room, 
which  the  woman  of  the  house  was  quite  ready 
to  keep  for  him  until  Saturday.  She  was,  in- 
deed, a  rosy-cheeked,  full-breasted  creature,  the 
mother  of  a  tribe  of  children,  whose  presence 
did  not  make  it  easier  to  keep  her  rooms  occu- 
pied. Seven-and-sixpence  a  week,  all  told,  cov- 
ered the  rent  of  this  room,  high  up  over  steep 
stairs,  on  the  condition  that  Stanton  should  take 
his  breakfast  in  the  kitchen  to  save  work.  "  And 
a  matter  of  a  button  that  wants  sewing  on — I 
know  what  young  men  are — "  said  Mrs.  Bon- 
nington,  "  you  bring  to  me  when  I've  got  time, 
and  I'll  do  what  I  can  for  you.  Deposit?  Law, 
no!  Not  with  your  face,  my  boy.  What  are 
you  doing  alone  in  the  world?  Got  no  father 
and  mother?  " 

Stanton  shook  his  'head.  "  I'll  tell  you  about 
it  some  day,"  he  said. 

"  Tell  me  anything  you  like,  my  dear,  and 
when  you  like,"  said  the  landlady.  "  You're  not 
the  first  young  gentleman  as  I've  taken  in  an' 
done  for — not  by  a  many  dozen,"  and  she 
laughed  knowingly,  twisting  a  thin  wedding 
ring. 

Stanton  went  away,  a  good  deal  lighter  in 
heart  than  he  had  come.  Mrs.  Bonnington's 
blunt  kindliness  rang  truer  than  the  other  wo- 
man's unctuous  protestations  had  done,  easily 
as  he  had  been  taken  in  by  them.  He  felt  that 
at  last,  with  a  welcome  amendment  in  his  bud- 
get, he  had  fallen  into  safe  hands,  where  the  dis- 
ii 


162  BORLASE   &    SON 

tasteful  duty  of  "  sticking  up  "  for  himself  was 
not  likely  to  be  required  of  him. 

And  thereafter,  to  his  happier  mood,  a  fresh 
solace  offered  itself.  Keenly  regretting  them, 
he  could  hardly  look  to  be  a  frequent  visitor  of 
the  Wicksteds;  and  indeed  he  had  determined, 
in  his  own  mind,  small  as  the  danger  was  of  some 
spy  carrying  the  story  of  his  visits  there  to  Mr. 
Borlase,  to  go  to  their  house  no  more,  on  any 
insistence,  however  hospitable.  But  it  sud- 
denly occurred  to  him,  that  if  there  were  pos- 
sible risk  in  his  going  to  them,  their  peril  in 
coming  to  him  would  be  practically  nothing. 
And  in  this  sudden  revelation,  'he  wrote  in  haste 
to  the  Wicksteds,  proposing  that  they  should 
visit  him,  in  his  new  abode,  next  Sunday  eve- 
ning. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

BETTER,   ALL  ROUND 

THAT  further  strife  of  words  to  which  Stanton 
looked  forward,  not  without  some  amount  of 
pusillanimous  apprehension,  as  Saturday  drew 
nearer,  did  not  after  all  occur.  For  Friday  had 
seen  a  catastrophe — a  descent  of  Fates  which, 
as  the  poor  and  unprotected  widow  she  so  often 
called  herself,  Mrs.  Smithers  had  a  just  right  to 
resent.  The  god  out  of  the  machine  was  none 
other  than  that  lost  protector  so  often  deplored 
by  his  supposititious  relict.  Mr.  Smithers, 
in  fact,  rose  from  the  dead,  with  his  hair  cut 
short,  and  an  unassuageable  thirst  for  strong 
waters.  There  were  high  words  below  stairs  as 
early  as  the  forenoon;  on  Saturday  morning  the 
tempest  which  was  raging  when  he  passed 
through  the  street  door  made  Stanton  very  glad 
that  his  appointments  with  possible  employers 
were  likely  to  keep  him  abroad  until  after  noon. 
And  when  at  length  he  did  return,  to  pack  and 
resolutely  cord-up  his  box,  Mrs.  Smithers,  so  far 
from  being  fortified  to  a  fresh  insistence  on  the 
rights  she  had  previously  maintained,  by  the 
resurrection  of  her  dead,  allowed  him  to  depart 
without  comment;  and  by  five  o'clock  lie  was 
safely  installed  in  Mrs.  Bonnington's  top  room. 
On  invitation,  he  presently  took  tea  with  that 


164  BORLASE   &    SON 

lady  and  her  children — Mr.  Bonnington  himself, 
a  working  silversmith  of  subdued  manners, 
hardly  appeared  to  come  into  any  other  cate- 
gory. Stanton  almost  expected  to  see  him  taken 
upstairs  to  bed  with  the  Bonnington  offspring, 
when  later  on  the  time  arrived.  He  was,  how- 
ever, merely  bidden  to  "  clean  "  himself,  ready 
to  go  out  with  Mrs.  Bonnington  to  market, 
Stanton,  who  had  already  ingratiated  himself 
with  the  smaller  children,  volunteering  to  give 
an  ear  to  them  in  the  parental  absence. 

It  was  on  his  own  proposition,  modestly  ad- 
vanced, that  he  received  the  meals  on  Sunday 
with  his  hosts,  at  the  modest  expense  of  a  shil- 
ling. "  Whenever  you  like,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
Bonnington — she  called  everyone  "  my  dear," 
except  her  husband,  to  whom  she  always  alluded 
and  spoke  by  his  unassisted  surname — "  only 
name  it  to  me  overnight,  before  Bonnington  and 
me  goes  marketing,  whether  you  are  goin'  to 
stay  in  a-Sunday  or  not.  It's  no  ill-convenience 
either  way ;  and  a  shilling  won't  break  you — nor 
make  me,  for  that  matter — when  you  do  come 
down." 

Wicksted,  who,  with  Edith,  arrived  on  Sunday 
evening  after  tea,  pronounced  the  opinion  that 
Stanton  had  "  fallen  on  his  feet  "  this  time. 

"  You'll  do  here,"  he  said.    "  Eh,  Edie?  " 

"  Yes,  from  What  you  say,"  she  replied,  glanc- 
ing round  the  room — a  sitting-room  on  the  first 
floor  which  happened  to  be  vacant,  and  which 
Mrs.  Bonnington  had  insisted  on  Stanton's  us- 
ing, when  she  learned  that  he  expected  friends. 


BORLASE   &   SON  165 

The  garret  which  was  his  own  had  already  been 
inspected  and  approved  of,  and  Stanton's  finan- 
cial arrangements  had  likewise  been  discussed, 
in  the  whisper  somehow  considered  proper  to 
such  conversations. 

"  But  how  are  you  getting  on  with  regard  to 
a  job?  "  Wicksted  asked;  and  Stanton's  face  fell 
while  he  admitted  that  the  only  interviews  of  the 
week  which  had  not  culminated  in  explicit  re- 
jection, had  left  him  nothing  better  than  vague 
promises  that  he  should  "  h'ear  from  "  the  in- 
terviewed in  case  of  his  services  being  required. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  he  said;  "  that  there  isn't  much 
chance  for  me.  To  tell  you  the  truth  I  don't 
know  what  to  do.  What  with  one  thing  and 
another,  I've  got  through  the  best  part  of  five 
pounds  already;  and  that  won't  do,  you  know. 
What  do  you  advise  me  to  do  ?  " 

"Hum.  I  hardly  know,"  said  Wicksted.  "You 
see  the  difficulty  is,  that  you've  no  especial  quali- 
fication; there's  nothing,  I  mean,  that  in  any 
particular  way  you  can  be  said  to  know.  Con- 
sequently you  have  to  take  your  chance  with  a 
hundred  others;  you  can  only  trust  to  good  luck. 
If  you  had  any  especial  experience,  you  see,  it 
might  help." 

"  I  might  try  to  get  a  crib  behind  the  counter 
somewhere,  in  our  line,"  he  suggested.  "  I 
know  something  of  that." 

"Oh,  Lord!  don't  try  that  While  there's  a 
gutter  to  sweep  or  a  horse  to  hold.  You  know 
the  hell  it  is !  " 

"  No,  I  wouldn't  go  back  to  those  nasty  shops 


166  BORLASE   &   SON 

if  I  were  you,"  said  Mrs.  Wicksted.  "  They 
dry  the  blood  up  out  of  young  men,  with  the  gas, 
and  the  close  air,  and  the  bad  food.  Do  you 
know  what  one  of  the  girls  said  to  me,  when 
7  first  went  out? — I  was  a  country  girl,  you 
know,  and  had  the  appetite  of  three  shop-girls. 
'  Ah/  she  said  to  me,  '  you  won't  want  so  much 
to  eat  presently,'  she  said ;  '  and  you'll  soon  lose 
your  high  colour,'  she  said.  I  was  thought 
rather  nice-looking  then,  Mr.  Borlase — at  least 
some  people  pretended  to  think  so."  She  turned, 
an  expressive  pair  of  brown  eyes  on  her  hus- 
band as  she  spoke,  lest  the  high  subtlety  of  this 
reminiscence  should  make  it  too  difficult  of  com- 
prehension. Philip  pinched  her  cheek.  "  I 
think  so  still,"  he  said  gallantly.  Stanton  walked 
with  discretion  to  the  window  and  back. 

"  No;  no  shops  if  you  can  help  it,"  Edith  said 
again,  putting  her  bonnet  straight.  "  They  eat 
up  body  and  soul !  " 

"  But  all  shops  are  not  the  same,"  Stanton  ob- 
jected. Mrs.  Wicksted,  as  usual,  took  refuge  in 
nasal  inspiration. 

"  No  easier  to  find  a  counter  billet  than  a  desk 
billet,"  said  her  husband;  "and  a  sight  worse 
pay.  No.  You've  been  to  school.  Chance 
your  luck  a  while  longer,  and  try  to  do  better 
than  counter-jumping.  You're  a  cut  above 
that." 

"  But  I  don't  seem  to  make  much  progress," 
Stanton  complained. 

"  You  can't  make  progress  until  you  get  a 
job,"  said  the  logical  Wicksted. 


BORLASE   &   SON  167 

"  I  know;  but  I  mean  to  say,  I  don't  seem 
any  nearer  to  getting  a  situation." 

"  But,  good  Lord !  How  long  have  you  been 
looking  for  one?  A  fortnight,  call  it.  It  isn't 
a  fortnight  yet.  You  don't  expect  billets  to  drop 
from  the  clouds  as  soon  as  you  open  your  mouth 
to  receive  them,  do  you?  "  asked  Wicksted,  with 
a  slig'ht  confusion  of  similes.  "  Wait  till  you've 
been  three  months  on  the  look-out,  and  then  you 
may  say  something." 

"  And  in  the  meantime  my  twenty  pounds  will 
be  gone,"  said  Stanton  dolefully.  "  Can't  you 
give  me  any  tips  as  to  how  to  go  about  it?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Wicksted  uneasily,  look- 
ing at  his  wife,  who  for  once  avoided  'his  eyes. 
They  had,  in  fact,  discussed  certain  of  Stanton's 
deficiencies  as  a  candidate — deficiencies  already 
but  too  obvious  to  ourselves.  "  Let's  see,"  con- 
tinued Wicksted,  weakly  deferring  the  real 
point.  "  What  sort  of  letter  do  you  write?  " 

Stanton  took  from  'his  pocket  a  folded  half- 
sheet  of  note-paper.  "  That's  wrhat  I  say,  as  a 
rule,'  he  said,  blushing  a  little.  "  I — I  alter  it 
you  know  according  to  circumstances,  if  the  ad- 
vertisement says  anything  to  guide  me.  I  don't 
put  it  always  just  like  that."  The  weakness  of 
his  attack  seemed  suddenly  to  eclipse  everything 
else,  now  that  his  draft  letter  was  under  Wick- 
sted's  critical  eyes.  Edith  had  got  up  and  was 
looking  over  her  'husband's  shoulder,  her  plump 
cheek  close  to  his  ear. 

"  There's  nothing  much  the  matter  with  that," 
Philip  pronounced  at  last.  "  You  could  always 


168  BORLASE   &   SON 

write  a  good  letter,  you  know.  But  to  be  frank 
with  you — between  friends,  don't  you  know — I 
think  if  there's  anything  the  matter  with  you, 
you  most  likely  don't  give  a  good  impression 
when  you  get  sent  for.  How  many  of  your 
letters  fetch  an  appointment — what  proportion, 
I  mean  to  say?  " 

"  Nearly  all  that  I  expect  answers  from  now," 
said  Stanton.  "  I  didn't  get  so  many  at  first, 
and  this  letter  is  the  result  of  a  fortnight's  trials, 
you  see.  I  amended  the  first  letter  I  used  to 
write,  as  I  went  along — see?  " 

"Just  shows  what  you  were  saying,"  Edith 
murmured  to  her  husband. 

"  You  see  it  isn't  the  letter;  so  it  must  be  you, 
you  see,"  Wicksted  continued  bravely.  Stanton, 
abashed,  looked  anywhere  but  in  his  friends' 
faces.  "  You  don't  speak  up  for  yourself. 
You're  educated  three  times  better  than  the 
chaps  you  compete  with — Board  Schools  brats, 
most  of  'em.  Your  appearance  is  all  rigfat — 
clothes  cut  properly  and  all  that.  But  you  don't 
think  enough  of  yourself.  You  don't  stick  up  to 
the  people,  if  you  know  what  I  mean." 

"  They're  so  beastly  stuck-up  themselves," 
said  poor  Stanton.  "  They  sit  on  a  fellow  so. 
I  always  feel  such  a  fool,  and  I'm  afraid  of  seem- 
ing a  worse  one." 

"What's  it  matter?"  asked  Wicksted.  "If 
you  don't  get  the  billet,  you  never  see  'em  again. 
If  you  do  get  it,  it's  worth  a  few  minutes'  em- 
barrassment. They  can't  bite  you." 

"  They  can  sit  on  you  awfully,"  said  Stanton 


BORLASE   &   SON  169 

again.    "  I've  been  snubbed  to  death  this  week." 

"Let  'em  snub,"  said  Wicksted.  "You're 
none  the  worse  afterwards,  and  it'll  be  all  the 
same  a  hundred  years  hence  " — an  irrelevant 
consideration  which  has  failed  to  console  others, 
before  Stanton  Borlase.  "  You've  got,"  pur- 
sued the  relentless  Wicksted,  who  knew  very 
well  that  he  was  worrying  his  friend  horribly, 
but,  being  no  cruel-kind  sentimentalist,  pressed 
the  probe  home — "  you've  got  to  overcome  that 
bashfulness  of  yours.  Speak  up  for  yourself.  It 
doesn't  pay  to  be  frightened." 

He  was,  unconsciously,  playing  the  game  of 
Stanton's  guardian.  Could  Mr.  Borlase  have 
overheard  this  conversation,  it  is  possible  that 
he  might  almost  have  condoned  the  flouting  of 
his  commands. 

"  Paris  vaut  bien  une  messe,"  continued  Wick- 
sted, whose  closely  limited  acquaintance  with 
the  tongue  of  modern  Gaul  was  the  source  of  a 
very  naive  pride  to  his  pretty  wife.  "  It's  worth 
while  putting  up  with  a  little  unpleasantness — 
which  is  nothing  at  all,  the  moment  you've 
taken  the  plunge.  A  decent  man  doesn't  snub 
you;  if  one,  here  and  there,  is  a  snob,  you're 
a  better  man  than  he  is,  that's  all." 

'  You  don't  think  enough  of  yourself,  Mr. 
Borlase."  Edith  repeated  her  husband's  words. 
Philip  interrupted  her: 

"  You've  got  a  sound  education,  and  a  good 
ref.,"  he  said.  "  You've  been  better  brought 
up  than  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  fellows  that  are 
after  these  jobs,  and  your  looks  are  in  your 


170  BORLASE   &   SON 

favour.  I'll  tell  you  another  thing.  Always  stare 
the  beggars  in  the  face;  they'll  always  treat  you 
better  when  you  do  that !  I  learnt  it  long  ago." 

"  There's  so  much  competition  for  every  crib," 
said  Stanton  again,  gloomily ;  "  and  any  amount 
of  Germans  in  the  market." 

"Fiddle,"  said  Wicksted,  succinctly.  "De- 
cent houses  don't  employ  these  foreign  rats, 
who  work  for  nothing  and  try  to  starve  every- 
one. It's  well  known  they're  not  cheap  in  the 
end." 

"  Do  you  think  I'm  asking  too  mudi?  "  Stan- 
ton  suggested. 

"What  do  you  ask?" 

"  I've  come  down  to  fifteen  shillings,  now," 
said  Stanton.  "In  fact,  I  generally  tell  them  I'll 
come  for  what  anyone  else  will  come  for.  Half 
a  loaf,  you  know." 

"  A  mistake,"  said  Wicksted.  "  You'll  do  no 
good  by  undervaluing  yourself.  Stick  out  for 
fifteen  bob.  It  will  be  time  enough  to  accept 
less  if  they  offer  it  to  you.  And  above  all,"  he 
concluded,  as  he  rose  to  go,  "  think  as  much  of 
yourself  as  you  can,  and  look  'em  straight  in  the 
eye." 

Stanton,  as  he  lay  trying  to  sleep  that  night, 
endeavoured  to  make  up  his  mind  that  he  would 
respect  himself,  in  future.  The  effort,  when  he 
hurried  to  town,  in  response  to  letters  which  had 
come  by  Saturday  night's  post,  was  to  make  him 
appear  gauche  and  rather  cheeky  in  his  first  in- 
terviews. But  he  watched  himself  intelligently, 
and  noted  his  own  errors.  He  found,  too,  as 


BORLASE   &   SON  171 

Wicksted  had  predicted,  that  when  he  cultivated 
his  own  self-respect,  he  was  treated  with  more 
consideration  by  the  men  who  sent  for  him ;  and 
that,  after  all,  even  when  he  was  snubbed,  the 
effect  of  the  humiliation  wore  off  after  an  hour's 
reflection.  In  short,  curt  words  broke  no  bones. 
He  was  already  getting  a  little  toughened — 
nervous,  bashful,  and  very  ready  to  blush,  still; 
but  decidedly  more  of  a  man.  His  letters,  as 
Wicksted  had  approvingly  discovered,  were 
good  ones,  and  he  had  soon  been  obliged  to 
relegate  their  inditement  to  the  evening,  his 
days  being  mostly  occupied  in  keeping  appoint- 
ments. He  was  even  sometimes  compelled  to 
choose  between  some  which  overlapped. 

On  Saturday  morning  his  hopes  rose  high. 
He  got  a  second  summons  from  a  merchant  who 
had  sent  him  away  last  week  with  a  promise  that 
he  should  be  sent  for  if  required. 

It  turned  out  that  one  or  two  other  candidates 
for  the  position  and  emolument  of  a  clerkship 
at  fifty  pounds  a  year  had  likewise  been  bidden 
to  return  for  further  questioning,  and  Stanton 
found  himself  on  a  sort  of  anxious-bench  with 
three  or  four  rivals,  awaiting  the  result  of  an 
interview  which  was  being  undergone  by  a  first 
comer.  In  turn,  each  was  sent  for,  and  in  due 
course  returned  to  the  seat  of  aspiration.  Stan- 
ton's  turn  at  length  came — he  was  the  last  can- 
didate to  be  seen. 

After  he  had  answered  a  number  of  questions, 
and  successfully  solved  a  sum  in  "  practice  "  pro- 
posed for  his  experimentation,  he,  too,  was  bid- 


172  BORLASE   &   SON 

den  to  wait,  while  the  chief  clerk  was  conferred 
with.  He  took  his  place,  looking  furtively  at  the 
other  young  men,  who  sate  in  attitudes  of  va- 
rious embarrassment  and  discomfort.  His  hands 
were  damp  with  nervous  perspiration ;  his  heart 
beat  so  hard  that  he  could  feel  it  almost  shak- 
ing his  arm.  He  compared  himself  furtively, 
and  to  his  disadvantage,  with  each  of  his  rival 
suitors,  and  pulled  a  button  off  his  waistcoat  in 
his  fidgetty  agitation. 

At  length  the  door  opened.  The  amount  of 
consideration  expended  in  this  choice  was  of 
good  omen,  if  Stanton  had  only  known  it,  for 
the  character  of  the  employment.  A  good  house 
takes  pains  not  to  admit  a  doubtful  confidant. 
As  the  chief  clerk  came  out,  the  blood  rushed 
to  Stanton's  face  and  he  rose,  almost  faint  with 
anxiety.  The  clerk  called  out  a  name  which 
was  not  Stanton's.  "  Mr.  Renfrew  has  chosen 
this  young  man,"  'he  said,  indicating  the  can- 
didate who  had  been  thus  signalised.  "  We  are 
sorry  to  have  kept  you  all  so  long  waiting,  and 
I  wish  you  better  luck  next  time." 

Ill,  and  feeling  sick,  Stanton  turned  away 
without  speaking.  The  other  young  men  said, 
"  Good  morning,  sir,"  and  filed  out.  He  was 
hungry — for  it  was  nearly  two  o'clock  now — but 
too  wretched  to  eat.  He  walked  over  London 
Bridge,  and  reached  home,  riding  in  a  crowded 
tramway-car,  as  quickly  as  he  could.  Arrived, 
he  locked  his  door  and  threw  himself  on  his  bed, 
to  bury  his  face  in  the  pillow  in  a  sort  of  dull 
unconsciousness  even  of  his  own  despair.  The 


BORLASE   &   SON  173 

whole  world  seemed  empty  of  all  but  disappoint- 
ment. Mrs.  Bonnington,  who  presently  came 
up  with  a  letter,  had  to  knock  three  or  four  times 
and  finally  call  through  the  keyhole,  enquiring  if 
he  were  ill,  before  he  heard  her. 

He  opened  the  door  and  took  the  letter. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Stanton,  you're  not  well — you've 
been  crying,"  she  exclaimed;  the  good  woman 
had  none  of  the  reticences.  "  W'hat's  the 
matter?" 

"  I  thought  I'd  got  work,  and  I  'haven't;  that's 
all,"  he  said.  "  It's  nothing.  It  doesn't  matter." 
Pride  was  coming  to  his  rescue. 

"  Well,  here's  a  letter,"  said  the  landlady. 
"  Perhaps  that's  better  news." 

"  No.  Only  another  disappointment,  I'll  bet," 
said  Stanton  bitterly,  throwing  the  letter  on  his 
wet  pillow. 

"  Never  say  die,"  said  Mrs.  Bonnington.  "It's 
always  darkest  before  the  sun  comes  out.  Open 
it,  like  a  man  !  " 

He  went  to  the  bed  and  tore  the  letter  open. 
It  was  typewritten  and  brief;  he  'had  mastered 
it  in  a  moment.  His  face  worked  strangely. 

"Well?"  asked  Mrs.  Bonnington. 

"  It's — it's  a  week  on  trial  anyway,"  he  stam- 
mered, trembling  all  over. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  cried  the  landlady. 
He  staggered  forward.  She  took  his  face  in  her 
warm  hands  and  kissed  him  heartily  on  the 
cheek.  "  Well  done !  "  she  cried. 

But  Stanton's  strength  was  gone.  He  stum- 
bled and  almost  fell;  the  good  woman  caught 


174  BORLASE   &    SON 

him  in  her  arms,  and  he  sobbed  like  a  baby  on 
her  large  bosom. 

The  letter  (which  was  from  a  firm  he  had 
visited  the  day  before)  requested  his  presence  at 
nine  o'clock  on  Monday  morning,  for  a  week's 
trial,  at  a  pound  a  week.  It  was  signed,  "  Doug- 
las, Wilkinson  &  Spender." 


CHAPTER   XIV 

EMPLOYMENT 

IN  selecting  Stanton  for  the  vacancy  in  his  office, 
Mr.  Douglas,  who  was  the  only  active  partner 
in  the  firm,  had  been  influenced  as  well  by  the 
intuitions  to  which  he  rather  often  confided  such 
decisions,  as  by  his  habitual  attitude  towards  his 
staff.  He  admitted  a  responsibility.  It  was  his 
choice  to  make  work  for  the  house  of  Douglas, 
Wilkinson  &  Spender  a  desirable  thing.  He  re- 
garded the  duty  of  employment  as,  in  some  sort, 
a  trust,  whereof  he  saw  himself  the  administra- 
tor, and,  with  a  larger  benevolence  than  that  of 
many  who  call  themselves  philanthropists,  it  was 
in  his  fine  morality  to  think  himself  bound  to  use 
his  high  position  in  the  mercantile  world  to  the 
advantage  of  as  many  people  as  possible.  This 
did  not  hinder  him  from  being  a  shrewd  man 
of  business  and  a  keen  judge  of  men ;  he  was  not 
in  the  least  blind  to  the  fact  that  his  indulgences 
were  often  abused.  Like  the  confessor  in  the 
ballad,  old  heads  upon  young  shoulders  he  did 
not  expect  to  find;  and  if 'his  offices  were  some- 
times conferred  on  undeservers,  he  knew  too 
well  how  to  safeguard  larger  interests,  to  let  his 
partners  suffer.  Enforced  occasion  could  make 
him  severe ;  but  he  excused  error,  and  even  care- 


176  BORLASE   &   SON 

lessness,  with  much  compassion,  sensible  that 
his  displeasure  was  in  itself  punishment. 

This  same  gift  of  sympathy  prompted  his  keen 
questioning  of  Stanton,  and  enabled  him  to  di- 
vine, beneath  the  lad's  excessive  shyness  and 
lack  of  nerve,  the  excellent  qualities  latent  in 
him.  He  had  elicited  something  of  the  candi- 
date's position ;  he  read  in  his  tone  and  the 
eager  anxiety  of  his  eyes  the  unusual  difficulties 
which  his  temperament  would  be  likely  to  throw 
in  his  way,  when  seeking  work.  Exactly  the  tim- 
idity which  spoiled  Stanton's  chances  with  other 
prospective  employers,  gained  him  a  position 
with  Mr.  Douglas;  and  it  was  something  of  his 
own  sense  of  duty  to  the  dependents  of  the  firm 
that  the  latter  tried  to  convey  to  his  son  as  they 
smoked  their  last  cigars  together  on  Sunday 
night.  Stanton,  as  it  happened,  was  the  first  ap- 
plicant whom  Mr.  Douglas  had  sent  for — he 
made  it  a  point  to  take  entirely  upon  himself  the 
trouble,  rarely  occurring,  of  engaging  new  men. 
As  soon  as  he  had  talked  with  Stanton  and  made 
out  his  position  and  character,  he  decided  to  let 
him  fill  the  vacancy;  a  reply  from  Mr.  Borlase, 
Stanton's  referee,  was  all  he  had  waited  for  be- 
fore communicating  his  decision  in  the  letter 
which  rescued  the  lad  from  the  despair  in  which 
he  had  thrown  himself  on  his  bed  the  previous 
day. 

"  I  have  sent  word,  Edmund,"  said  Mr.  Doug- 
las, leaning  forward  in  his  long  arm-chair,  "  to 
that  young  man,  John  Stanton,  whom  I  saw  on 


BORLASE   &   SON  177 

Friday.  He  is  to  come  for  a  week's  trial  to- 
morrow morning." 

"  Oh,  very  good,"  Edmund  replied.  "  Do 
you  want  me  to  set  him  to  work  ?  " 

"  Well,  perhaps  you'd  better  let  him  wait  until 
I  come,"  said  Mr.  Douglas  thoughtfully.  "  You 
know,"  he  added,  looking  with  unreal  curiosity 
at  the  ash  of  his  cigar,  "  what  Mr.  Schneider  is. 
His  fur  may  be  stroked  the  wrong  way  if  I  don't 
hand  the  boy  over  to  him  personally  in  the  first 
instance;  and  things  might  be  made  disagree- 
able, which  I  don't  want.  He's  a  rather  timid 
boy,  Ned;  I  fancy  lie  may  have  lost  his  parents 
lately — you  noticed  that  he  was  dressed  in 
black? — and  that  he  had  been  used  to  a  certain 
amount  of  protection;  do  you  see?  " 

"  In  what  way  do  you  mean  that  he  is  timid  ?  " 
Edmund  asked.  Timidity,  if  it  interfered  with  a 
person  being  set  to  work  to  the  best  advantage, 
appeared  to  him  a  vice  that  ought  to  be  cor- 
rected as  soon  as  possible,  and  with  such  stern- 
ness as  might  be  requisite. 

"  I  mean  that  he  hasn't  much  *  push,'  "  said 
Mr.  Douglas.  "  He  could  be  easily  made  very 
unhappy  if  the  others  chose  to  send  him  to 
Coventry ;  and  he  would  let  himself  be  bullied  to 
almost  any  extent  before  he  would  assert  him- 
self. I'm  going  to  pay  him  a  pound  a  week  to 
begin  with;  but  I  shall  increase  it  at  the  first 
decent  opportunity.  He  needs  money  evidently, 
from  what  I  managed  to  get  out  of  him,  though 
he  was  rather  well  dressed.  I  fancy  that  suit  is 
about  the  last  of  his  mourning."  Mr.  Douglas 
12 


i;8  BORLASE   &    SON 

did  not  add,  what  he  knew,  that  some  twelve 
pounds  constituted  the  whole  of  Stanton's  capi- 
tal. 

"  It's  plenty  for  a  beginner,  isn't  it?  "  Edmund 
suggested,  referring  to  the  wage  propounded  by 
his  father.  "  He  hasn't  had  much  experience — 
judging  from  his  looks." 

"  I  don't  believe  he  has  had  any,  of  our  sort," 
said  Mr.  Douglas.  "  But  "  (with  a  smile),  "  he'll 
have  the  less  to  unlearn.  And  a  pound  is  little 
enough,  after  all,  for  a  young  man  who  has  to 
feed  and  clothe  himself  out  of  it.  He's  not  likely 
to  save  a  great  deal."  Mr.  Douglas  liked  his 
clerks  to  be  provident.  It  was  his  view  that  a 
little  money  standing  between  a  man  and  penury 
imparted  self-respect,  and  did  no  harm  to  his 
usefulness.  He  had  no  wish  to  trade  on  the  de- 
pendence of  'his  clerks;  'he  preferred  to  make 
their  employment  desirable  by  a  just  and  wisely- 
moderated  liberality. 

"  So  let  him  wait — give  a  message  to  Mr. 
Schneider,  rather,  to  tell  him  to  wait — until  I 
come,"  he  added.  "  I  shall  ask  Schneider  " — 
Mr.  Douglas  never  ordered  anything  to  be  done 
— "  to  turn  him  over  to  you  to  learn  his  duties. 
I  wish  you  to  keep  him  busy  as  far  as  you  can, 
and  have  him  under  your  own  eye.  Don't  let 
Lucraft  teach  him  to  be  idle." 

The  young  man  named  would  probably  have 
been  a  good  deal  surprised  if,  by  any  strange 
cfhance,  he  could  have  overheard  this  last  re- 
mark. His  readily  exhibited  preoccupation 
when  Mr.  Douglas  happened  to  pass  his  desk. 


BORLASE   &   SON  179 

and  his  sudden  skill  in  falling,  without  change  of 
tone,  into  the  discussion  of  some  business 
matter,  when  he  was  caught  talking  to  Peters  or 
Thurlow,  extorted  the  admiring  astonishment 
of  those  worthies,  and  in  his  own  felicitous  opin- 
ion could  not  possibly  be  unsuccessful  in  deceiv- 
ing his  employer.  It  has  already  been  conveyed 
to  you,  'however,  that  Mr.  Douglas  knew  much 
more  of  office  politics  than  his  young  men  sus- 
pected. Indeed,  even  Edmund  himself  was  often 
astonished  to  find  how  much  his  father  had  ob- 
served. He  was  no  tale-bearer,  but  many  things 
came  under  his  observation  which  he  was  glad 
to  find  his  father  noticing. 

Consequently,  after  the  delays  created  by  the 
procedure  Mr.  Douglas  'had  ordained,  Stanton 
was  set  to  work  to  index  some  letter-books,  a 
labour  considerately  left  for  the  expected  new- 
comer by  Mr.  Peters,  who  had  taken  advantage 
of  the  "  busy  "  state  of  affairs  to  neglect  this 
duty  for  some  ten  days. 

That  laborious  individual  found  leisure,  not- 
withstanding, to  hear  Lucraft's  comments  on 
the  apprentice  (as  he  called  him)  when  Schneider 
had  gone  to  the  bank.  Edmund  was  engaged  in 
examining  some  correspondence  with  Miss 
Chippendale. 

"  Here's  another  Johnny  come  to  undermine 
Mr.  Schneider's  position,"  Lucraft  observed, 
looking  sideways  at  Stanton,  who,  feverishly 
anxious  to  acquit  himself  successfully  during  his 
week  of  probation,  was  indexing  for  dear  life. 

"  What  do  you  make  of  him?  "  asked  Peters, 


i8o  BORLASE   &   SON 

with  a  snigger.  "  He  seems  in  a  deuce  of  a 
hurry." 

"  New  brooms,"  said  Lucraft  sagely.  "  I'll 
just  turn  him  over  and  see  what  he's  made  of.  I 
don't  think  he  is  a  sneak;  but  'he  mustn't  spoil 
things." 

He  therefore  crossed  with  his  silent  step  to 
Where  Stanton  was  working,  and  looked  over  his 
shoulder.  "  Getting  along  rather  fast,  aren't 
you  ?  "  he  inquired  critically. 

"  I  hope  so,  sir,"  said  Stanton,  who  had  as 
yet  no  means  of  judging  anyone's  position,  and 
was  anxious  to  show  respect  to  all  who  might 
merit  that  demonstration. 

"  You  know,"  said  Lucraft  sagaciously,  "  that 
the  governor  is  very  particular  about  his  books 
— about  everything  in  fact.  He'd  always  prefer 
that  anyone  should  take  a  little  longer  over  a 
job,  and  do  it  neatly." 

Stanton  reddened,  and  in  marking  off  the  ref- 
erence figures  on  the  thin  paper  of  the  letter- 
book  with  his  blue  pencil,  took  pains  to  write 
them  with  greater  precision  than  he  had  em- 
ployed before.  The  early  pages  of  the  book, 
marked  in  Peter's  slapdash  hand,  had  led  him  to 
suppose  speed  a  chief  consideration.  He  turned 
back  two  or  three  pages  and  mended  some  of  his 
figures.  Lucraft  took  the  book  from  the  desk 
and  threw  open  the  index,  that  he  might  scruti- 
nise Stanton's  handwriting.  Just  then  the  door 
of  the  typewriting  room  opened,  and  Edmund 
came  out.  He  looked  keenly  across  the  office, 
missed  Lucraft  from  his  place,  and  finding  him 
at  Stanton's  elbow,  asked : 


BORLASE   &   SON  181 

"What's  the  matter,  Lucraft?  Want  the 
letter-book?" 

"  No,  sir,"  replied  that  worthy,  without  abash- 
ment. "  Mr.  Stanton  couldn't  quite  make  out 
a  name,  that's  all.  Yes,  it  is  '  Johnson/  "  he  con- 
cluded, addressing  the  surprised  Stanton. 
"  You'll  find  several  letters  to  that  firm."  Stan- 
ton,  who  had  turned  very  red,  made  no  reply. 
Lucraft  trod  on  his  toe.  "  Answer,  can't  you, 
you  fool?"  he  whispered. 

"  Er — thank  you,  sir,  I  see  now,"  said  Stanton 
aloud,  and  Lucraft  slipped  back  to  his  place. 

"  If  you  find  any  more  difficulties,  Stanton, 
please  bring  them  to  me,"  said  Edmund,  and 
walked  over  to  his  side.  He  looked  at  the  open 
book.  The  letter  was  perfectly  copied,  and  the 
name  at  the  'head  of  it  was  not  Johnson.  But 
he  said  nothing  more.  Stanton  felt  that  he  had 
been  already  detected  in  a  deception  and  his 
hand  shook  nervously.  Young  Douglas,  re- 
membering his  father's  admonitions,  laid  his 
hand  kindly  on  his  shoulder.  His  rebuke  was 
intended  purely  for  Lucraft's  benefit.  "  It's 
half-past  twelve,"  he  said.  "  You'd  better  go  to 
your  lunch,"  and  he  closed  the  letter-book  with 
his  own  hand,  wishing  to  convey  that  the  in- 
cident was  closed  also.  When  he  had  seen  Stan- 
ton  leave  the  office  he  returned  to  the  small 
room. 

"  He  doesn't  seem  to  know  much,"  was  Lu- 
craft's comment,  addressed  in  a  whisper  to 
Peters;  "  if  you  ask  me,  he's  a  bit  of  a  Juggins. 
Still,  he  can  learn — or  he  and  I  will  fall  out. 


182  BORLASE   &   SON 

Gone  to  lunch,"  he  remarked  mischievously  to 
Mr.  Schneider,  who  had  just  bustled  in  and  had 
addressed  an  interrogative  glance,  first  to  Stan- 
ton's  desk,  and  then  to  Lucraft.  "  Mr.  Edmund 
sent  him,"  added  Thurlow,  who  had  kept  quiet 
thus  far.  "  I  suppose  the  rest  of  us  can  fit  our 
time  to  his,"  he  added,  taking  his  cue,  as  usual, 
from  the  book-keeper,  who  had  "  bridled  "  at 
once  on  this. 

"  Well,  it  wasn't  the  boy's  fault,  was  it  ?  "  said 
Lucraft,  who  made  no  secret  of  his  contempt  for 
Thurlow.  He  had  quite  good  nature  enough  to 
smooth  the  path  of  a  newcomer,  so  long  as  he 
saw  no  danger  of  the  latter  violating  the  otiose 
'tradition  of  the  office,  or  coming  between  him- 
self and  young  Douglas,  with  whom,  however, 
his  influence  had  of  late  declined. 

But  simultaneously,  Miss  Chippendale's  brisk 
comradeslhip  had  developed  in  Edmund  a 
marked  respect  for  her  rather  censorious  opin- 
ions; had  he  been  anything  of  a  moralist,  or  even 
the  most  casual  student  of  character  within  and 
about  himself — instead  of  being  a  quite  ordinary 
and  not  objectionably  clever  young  man  from 
Oxford — 'he  might  have  wondered  how  it  had 
been  conveyed  to  him  that  her  opinion  of  Mr. 
Lucraft  was  decidedly  unfavourable.  For  cer- 
tainly he  could  have  quoted  no  word  of  hers 
on  the  subject.  His  own  studies  in  rlie  art  of 
shorthand — Miss  Chippendale  'had  a  mental 
smile  of  bleak  comprehension  as  she  noted  it — 
had  been  relaxed  after  a  week  or  two,  in  fa- 
vour of  a  fuller  occupation  of  his  time  with  actual 


BORLASE   &   SON  183 

business.  Edmund  was  at  that  stage  of  young 
manhood  when  strenuousness  is  the  dominant 
note.  He  plunged  into  icy  water  at  unseemly 
'hours,  that  'he  might  walk  the  five  miles  from 
home  to  office  and  yet  arrive  on  the  stroke  of 
nine ;  and  slept  the  sleep  of  the  fully  occupied  at 
ten  every  night.  "  It's  really  a  necessity  to  live 
out  all  one's  time,  don't  you  think,"  he  had  said 
once  to  Miss  Chippendale ;  "  life  won't  be  so 
long  that  one  can  afford  to  waste  many  hours 
of  it,  physically  or  mentally." 

Miss  Chippendale  cordially  accepted  this 
maxim;  she  even  remembered  and  conveyed  it 
to  her  brother,  a  sculptor  of  some  genius,  as  she 
sate  in  his  studio  the  next  evening. 

"  H'm,"  said  the  latter  through  his  beard — 
pausing  to  step  backward  arid  contemplate  with 
head  aslant  the  effect  of  a  touch  he  had  just 
added  to  the  bust  on  his  tripod.  "  I  should 
think  he  is  a  bit  of  a  prig." 

"  He  isn't,"  she  replied.  "  You  always  call 
anyone  a  prig  who  makes  a  sensible  remark, 
Will." 

"Do  I?"  replied  the  sculptor.  "I  didn't 
know  it." 

"  Yes,  you  do,"  said  his  sister.  "  At  least  you 
always  call  my  friends  prigs." 

"  Do  I  ? "  he  said  again,  aggravatingly. 
"  Well,  you're  a  bit  of  a  prig  yourself,  perhaps, 
Mary." 

"  Am  I?  "  she  replied.  "  Well,  I  don't  utter 
personal  judgments  about  people  I've  never 
seen,  anyway." 


184  BORLASE   &   SON 

Chippendale  laughed.  "  How  awfully  decent 
of  you,"  he  said.  "  Utter  a  personal  judgment 
on  a  job  you  have  seen.  How  do  you  think  this 
is  coming?  " 

The  bust  was  the  portrait  of  a  young  painter 
who,  wifh  Chippendale,  formed  part  of  an  odd 
little  community  whereof  Mary  was  by  way  of 
enjoying  a  sort  of  unofficial  or  semi-detached 
membership.  She  came  around  and  looked  at 
the  bust  critically.  "  It's  coming  along,"  she  de- 
cided. "  You've  got  the  humour  of  his  mouth 
rather  well,  I  think.  You  oughtn't  to  touch  that 
again." 

"  The  lower  part  of  the  face  isn't  altogether 
finished,"  the  sculptor  grumbled. 

"  You'd  better  leave  it,  all  the  same,"  she  said. 
"  You'll  take  all  the  character  out  of  it  if  you 
meddle.  Personally,  I'd  rather  see  it  left  than 
spoiled  by  being  worked  up  any  further.  How 
long  has  Dartring  "  (the  original  of  the  bust) 
"  been  gone  ?  " 

"  He  went  out  a  moment  before  you  came," 
said  Chippendale.  "  I  wonder  you  didn't  meet 
him  on  the  stairs.  He's  coming  back  to  supper. 
Thinks  he  has  got  some  black-and-white  work 
for  one  of  those  magazines  he  sent  to." 

"  Well,  I  hope  he  has,"  she  said.  "  He  needs 
it  badly  enough." 

"  In  the  absence  of  a  settled  and  commercial 
talent,  yes,"  said  her  brother.  "  Take  your  skirt 
out  of  that  dish  of  plaster;  you've  no  idea  how 
bad  petticoats  are  for  wet  plaster." 


CHAPTER    XV 

BROTHER   AND    SISTER 

WILLIAM  CHIPPENDALE'S  remark  rankled  a  lit- 
tle in  his  sister's  memory,  and  she  came  back 
upon  it,  later,  before  their  friend  came  in  and 
found  them  laying  supper :  for  the  Chippendales 
kept  no  servant,  and  it  was  a  point  of  honour 
with  the  sculptor  to  do  his  share  of  the  house- 
work in  their  high  lodging. 

They  had  been  reading  most  of  the  evening — 
or,  rather,  Will  had  been  reading  aloud,  with 
frequent  and  scornful  comment,  some  news- 
paper criticism  on  a  picture  show  lately  opened, 
while  Mary  darned  the  domestic  stockings. 
When  she  put  these  aside,  and  her  brother  went 
down  stairs  for  a  jug  of  water — it  was  among 
their  cheerful  inconveniences  that  all  water  had 
to  be  fetched  laboriously  from  the  basement, 
four  storeys  down — she  recalled  and  perpended 
his  remark.  Was  Mr.  Edmund  Douglas  a  prig? 
Was  she  herself  ?  She  examined  the  matter,  and 
when  her  breathless  brother  entered  she  had 
come  to  a  conclusion  upon  it. 

"  Prig  yourself!  "  she  said,  putting  down  the 
bread-board  with  a  thump  and  going  back  to 
the  cupboard  for  cheese. 

"In  connection  with  whose  boots?"  he  in- 
quired sweetly. 


186  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  With  yours — which  you  might  as  well  have 
cleaned  while  you  were  in  the  kitchen,"  she  said. 

"  I'll  do  'em,  and  yours,  before  I  go  to  bed," 
he  promised.  "And  —  prig?  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  be  so  elliptical." 

"  For  calling  people  names  when  you  don't 
know  them,"  she  explained  inconsequently. 

"  Oh,  your  young  governor?  Well,  so  he  is," 
said  Chippendale.  "  It's  a  positive  impropriety 
to  walk  about  breathing  copybook  in  the  way 
he  does — by  your  own  account." 

"  I  didn't  say  anything  of  the  kind,"  Mary 
protested.  "  All  sensible  remarks  don't  come 
out  of  copybooks,  even  if  you  haven't  heard 
many  of  them  since  you  left  school." 

"  Not  enjoying  those  advantages — "  her 
brother  began. 

"Well?"  she  waited. 

"  Of  which  the  benefits  are  so  conspicuously 
perceived  in  yourself,"  he  concluded,  laughing. 
"Hallo,  Dartring,  what  luck?  Don't  speak  to 
Mary;  she's  venomous.  She  calls  names." 

Dartring,  who  had  just  come  in,  shook  hands 
with  her:  a  spare,  shaggy-bearded  man,  in  a 
Norfolk  suit  which  looked  as  if  the  pockets  of 
it  had  been  contrived  in  order  to  save  the  wearer 
the  inconvenience  of  carrying  a  portmanteau,  so 
widely  did  they  bulge  with  the  miscellany  they 
contained.  "  What's  Bill  been  saying  to  you, 
Miss  Chippendale?"  he  inquired. 

"  It  isn't  what  I've  been  saying,"  said  Chip- 
pendale, "  it's  what's  been  said  to  me.  Mary 


BORLASE   &   SON  187 

came  home  this  afternoon  oozing  the  proverbs 
of  Solomon  and  several  copybook  makers." 

"And  then?"  inquired  Dartring  judicially. 

"  Why,  Mr.  Dartring — "  Mary  began. 

"  Don't  interrupt,"  said  her  brother.  "  Then, 
when  she'd  quoted  several  volumes  of  headlines 
from  '  the  safe  guide  to  a  good  commercial 
handwriting,'  I  said  the  author  was  a  prig." 

Dartring  looked  bewildered — a  predicament 
not  surprising  in  the  circumstances.  "  Will  is 
merely  talking  nonsense,"  Mary  assured  him. 
"  It  isn't  in  the  least  serious.  He  will  be  quite 
rational  if  you  lead  him  gently  away  from  his 
little  delusions.  One  of  them  is,  that  to  make 
a  remark  which  is  in  the  least  degree  not  com- 
monplace, is  to  be  of  necessity  a  prig.  But  Will 
is  quite  harmless.  Shield  him  from  intelligent 
conversation  and  he's  really  quite  an  agreeable 
young  sculptor." 

"  But  come,  come  now,  he  is  a  bit  of  a  prig, 
isn't  he,  Sis?"  Chippendale  inquired.  "You 
implied  as  much  yourself  the  other  day." 

"  We  are  talking  about  my  employer's  son," 
Mary  explained  primly  to  Dartring,  ignoring 
her  brother.  "  He  is  a  nice  boy,  just  down  from 
Oxford,  with  an  Oxford  accent  that  you  could 
stick  drawing  pins  into,  but  quite  sensible — for 
his  age."  Mary's  foible,  if  she  had  one,  was  her 
sense  of  maturity.  "  Will  chooses  to  be  funny 
about  him,  you  understand." 

"  Oh,  lucidity!  "  said  Chippendale.  "  No  one 
is  allowed  to  laugh  at  Mary's  acquaintances  but 
herself." 


1 88  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  He  isn't  an  acquaintance.  He's  a  friend," 
she  answered.  "  I  like  him  very  much.  He'll 
make  a  man.  Have  you  sold  anything,  Mr. 
Dartring?" 

Chippendale  struck  across  the  question. 
"  Ask  him  to  tea,  then,  if  he's  a  friend,"  he  said. 

"  I  can't  do  that,  you  know,"  Mary  replied. 

"Why  not?" 

"  Well,  it  wouldn't  be  usual.  He's  my  em- 
ployer's son." 

"  Oh,  I  thought  you  said  he  was  a  friend  of 
yours." 

'  You  know  very  well  I  couldn't  ask  him  to 
call,"  she  replied.  "  He's  not  of  our  station." 

Chippendale  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  A 
friend !  "  he  said. 

Mary  turned  to  Dartring  and  repeated  her 
inquiry.  "Have  you  sold  anything?" 

"  No  answer  as  yet,"  said  the  painter.  "  These 
chaps  are  so  long  in  making  up  their  minds." 

"  It's  very  inconsiderate,  then,"  said  Mary, 
"  when  they're  dealing  with  people  like  us. 
Come  along:  supper's  ready."  And  they  all 
sat  down  to  the  table. 

"  Diomed  has  an  idea,"  said  Dartring.  "  He's 
been  seeing  Potts  of  the  Paragon  about  it  to- 
day. To  do  some  factories:  instructive  and 
amusing,  don't  you  know;  description  of  the 
process :  work  people  at  home,  and  so  forth.  If 
Potts  decides  to  let  him  try  it,  I'm  going  to 
Staffordshire  with  him  to  make  sketches." 

"  Potteries?  "  said  Mary.  "  Well,  it's  abomin- 
able work:  they  use  lead  in  the  glaze,  and  the 


BORLASE   &   SON  189 

people  get  horrible  diseases — paralysed  thumbs 
and  teeth  dropping  out  and  all  that." 

"  Yes,"  Dartring  assented,  "  that's  it.  He 
says  it  ought  to  be  shown  up." 

"  Then  Potts  won't  let  it  happen,"  said  Chip- 
pendale sententiously.  "  He's  too  much  afraid 
of  the  advertising  manager  to  say  anything 
against  the  sacred  cause  of  commerce." 

"  Staffordshire  doesn't  advertise,"  said  Dart- 
ring  hopefully.  "  Besides,  it  isn't  confined  to 
pottery.  If  we  make  a  "  go  "  of  it  we  are  to  do 
all  sorts  of  places:  ironworks,  dynamite  fac- 
tories, cotton  mills  and  all  that:  toute  la  lyre. 
It  isn't  an  indignation  series;  it's  light,  useless, 
interesting  '  information.'  You  know  the  Para- 
gon tradition:  anything  you  like  so  long  as  it 
doesn't  require  intelligence  to  read  it.  The  Pot- 
teries come  first,  because  there's  been  a  stir 
about  them  in  the  Star  and  such  like;  Potts  in- 
deed suggested  Staffordshire  because  he  thinks 
it  is  in  the  air." 

"  Potts  on  Potteries,"  said  Chippendale. 
"  Well,  I  hope  Diomed  will  pitch  it  strong. 
Some  of  these  factories  are  mere  murder  shops." 

"  Porcelain's  no  worse  than  plenty  of  other 
things,"  said  Mary.  "  And  the  cause  of  half  the 
unhealthiness  is  that  the  workpeople  won't  wash 
before  they  eat.  Consequently,  they  swallow 
all  sorts  of  poison  with  their  food." 

"  Admire  the  stunting  effects  of  commercial 
spirit  on  the  moral  sense,"  said  Chippendale. 
"  '  No  worse  than  other  things/  to  begin  with ; 
and  then  you  go  on  to  put  all  the  blame  on  the 


BORLASE   &   SON 

poor  people.  You  might  be  a  merchant  prince, 
fattening  on  the  blood  of  the  worker,  yourself, 
Mary." 

"  What  nonsense !  "  she  replied.  "  You  can't 
stop  the  manufacture  of  porcelain;  and  if  the 
workpeople  are  such  fools  or  such  infants  that 
they  won't  take  the  trouble  to  care  for  their  own 
health,  they  deserve  to  be  ill." 

"  Very  pretty;  but  they  ought  to  be  made  to 
take  precautions,"  said  her  brother.  "  Because 
they  are  ignorant  and  careless  it  is  no  reason 
why  they  should  be  allowed  to  kill  themselves 
and  beget  unhealthy  children,  and  then  leave 
those  children  to  starve." 

"  Don't  you  think  you  can  carry  that  prin- 
ciple too  far?"  Dartring  suggested.  "If  you 
are  going  to  run  about  after  grown  men  and 
women,  to  see  that  they  don't  injure  themselves, 
you  will  soon  teach  them  to  think  they  can't  be 
prudent  for  their  own  sakes." 

"  They  can't,"  said  Chippendale.  "  They've 
never  been  taught.  They  are  herded  into  fac- 
tories before  they  have  time  to  get  half-way 
through  the  smattering  that  passes  for  educa- 
tion, and  they  never  learn  anything  afterwards." 

"  Then  that's  an  argument  for  teaching  the 
workpeople,  but  not  one  for  abolishing  the  fac- 
tories," said  Mary,  in  her  precise  way.  "  Be- 
sides, commodities  must  be  produced  somehow." 

"  No  one  wants  to  abolish  them,"  Chippen- 
dale threw  back  at  her.  "  You  know  very  well 
that  china  can  be  glazed  without  lead ;  only  the 
safe  process  happens  to  be  a  little  dearer,  and, 


BORLASE   &   SON  191 

consequently,  the  greed  of  the  manufacturers 
and  jobbers  prevents  them  adopting  it.  The 
merchants  could  insist  on  the  other  process 
being  employed,  if  they  like,  Mary.  There  isn't 
anyone  who  is  engaged  in  the  business  that 
hasn't  a  share  in  the  responsibility;  I've  said  so 
before.  I've  no  doubt  paper  mills  are  just  as 
unhealthy,  and  if  they  are,  your  governor  is 
responsible,  and  you  are  responsible,  too,  and 
your  friend — the  young  governor — with  his 
proverbs." 

"  Paper  mills  are  on  the  whole  rather  clean, 
wholesome  places,"  Mary  replied.  "  There's  so 
much  water  used  and  the  work  is  so  dependent 
upon  perfect  cleanliness  that,  in  spite  of  chemi- 
cal bleaches,  the  manufacture  is  rather  a  healthy 
one.  However,  that  doesn't  affect  what  we  were 
saying.  You  can't  make  all  manufactures 
healthy  or  beautiful.  What  you  can  do  is  to 
teach  the  workpeople  to  take  care  of  themselves 
and  make  them  do  it ;  and  if  Mr.  Diomed's  arti- 
cle draws  attention  to  the  subject,  he  will  have 
done  something,  while  you  and  I  have  only  been 
talking  about  it.  And  I  should  like  to  know 
who'll  be  a  prig  then." 

'  Your  young  governor  from  Oxford  will  still 
be  a  prig,"  said  Chippendale.  "  '  Life  is  so  short 
one  can't  afford  to  miss  a  moment  of  it,'  "  he 
quoted  as  he  got  up,  laughing,  and  began  to 
clear  the  supper  table.  Mary  was  able  to  laugh, 
too,  now,  as  she  rose  to  help  him. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

ENTER    SMITH    &    PERKS 

INQUIRERS — that  is  to  say,  shop-customers  of 
a  certain  standing;  the  colleagues  of  Mr.  Bor- 
lase's  public  life  at  the  Vestry  and  elsewhere ;  and 
a  few  business  acquaintances  (it  was  always  a 
characteristic  of  this  remarkable  man  that  he 
had  no  friends) — learned  that  Stanton's  absence 
was  occasioned  by  arrangements  made  for  his 
welfare.  Gentle  zephyrs  of  appreciation  rippled 
the  surface  of  the  philanthropist's  fame.  In 
his  modest  way,  the  adoptive  father  was  under- 
stood to  be  putting  corner-stones  on  his  bene- 
ficence. Mr.  Borlase  often  alluded,  in  an  ab- 
sent-minded manner,  to  secret  charities,  the 
overt  right  hand  scripturally  unaware  what 
deeds  were  done  of  the  benevolent  and  occult 
left.  This,  it  was  felt,  was  one  of  them.  The 
splendours  of  the  Borlasian  munificence  gained 
by  this  obscurity,  imagination  lending  aid.  It  is 
through  a  similar  reticence  of  manner  that  Mil- 
ton is  considered  by  some  critics  to  excel  the 
author  of  the  Divina  Corn-media.  Vulgar  shop- 
assistants  (what  man  is  a  hero  to  his  valet?) 
asked  each  other  what  the  deuce  could  have  led 
to  the  young  governor's  expulsion.  Stanton 
had  been  liked  by  all  of  them.  But  no  one  at 
Peckham  Lane  ventured  to  inquire. 


BORLASE   &   SON  193 

For  it  is  a  painful  fact,  so  sorely  do  the  mental 
labours  of  the  benevolent  tax  a  generous  brain, 
that  about  this  time  Mr.  Borlase's  employing 
temper  was  exceptionally  venomous.  Business, 
against  all  precedent  and  reasonable  expecta- 
tion, was  not  as  good  as  it  might  have  been 
this  summer.  Smith  &  Perks,  a  brace  of  en- 
terprising capitalists  descending  from  the 
wholesale,  had  opened  a  large  and  flagrantly 
competitive  establishment  a  few  streets  off. 
Their  vast  emporium,  bright  with  plate-glass 
and  nickel  fittings,  displayed  wares  of  a  novelty 
and  splendour  which  made  their  modest  price- 
tickets  horribly  disconcerting  to  an  instructed 
eye:  nor  could  all  Mr.  Borlase's  confabulations 
with  thrifty  Germans  from  the  eastern  slum- 
mery  behind  Aldersgate  Street  yield  any  satis- 
factory remedy  or  any  clue  to  Smith  &  Perks's 
sources  of  supply.  Prices,  meantime,  tended  to 
a  minimum.  Nothing  could  have  been  much 
worse  for  an  exceptional  and  altogether  unpre- 
cedented Summer  Sale,  designed  to  make  way 
for  new  wares,  and  clear  out  once  and  for  all 
accumulations  undeniably  outdated  by  the 
novelties  of  the  new  emporium,  than  to  find 
that  the  most  daring  abatements  still  left  Bor- 
lase  &  Company's  old  stuff  dearer  than  the  in- 
novating importations  of  the  enemy.  Even  a 
final  marking  down  on  the  last  two  days  did  not 
mend  matters.  The  Suburb  was  (for  once)  too 
clever  for  its  Premier  Merchant.  The  Sale  was 
a  failure:  even  at  a  loss  on  buying  prices,  the 
stock  would  not  budge. 
13 


194  BORLASE   &   SON 

Nor  was  the  fiasco  of  the  Special  Sale  anything 
but  a  culminating  misdeed  of  the  trickster,  For- 
tune. From  the  very  opening  of  the  rival  es- 
tablishment of  Smith  &  Perks,  Borlase  &  Com- 
pany's trade  had  fallen  off.  Few  who  have  not 
had  practical  experience  of  it  plumb  the  pro- 
fundities of  the  female  shopper.  You  might 
have  thought,  as  you  walked  with  Prudence 
Wheble  and  her  mother  through  the  commer- 
cial part  of  the  Southern  Suburb,  that  a  ticketted 
blouse  in  one  window  and  a  similar  exhibit  in 
another  had  produced  no  effect.  Far  other- 
wise. In  a  month's  time,  summer  weather  hav- 
ing called  sudden  attention  to  the  gaps  in  Miss 
Wheble's  wardrobe,  the  prices  of  these  two 
garments  would  be  remembered  and  compared 
and  reasoned  upon.  "  That  new  shop  nearer 
ithis  way  is  cheaper  than  Borlase's  now,"  Pru- 
dence would  remember,  "  and  the  things  look 
fresher." 

"  Yes,  but  Borlase's  have  a  sale  on  next  week. 
It's  advertised  in  the  Mercury.  There  might  be 
something  to  pick  up,"  Mrs.  Wheble  would 
reply.  But  the  sale  advertisement  could  not 
make  mother  or  daughter  forget  what  the  win- 
dows had  told  them. 

Mr.  Borlase,  for  once  in  his  life,  made  a  mis- 
take about  that  Special  Sale.  He  overestimated 
its  glamorous  effect  on  minds  like  those  of  the 
Whebles.  Any  dame  of  the  Suburb  is  perfectly 
capable  of  remembering,  amid  all  the  rush  of 
the  crowded  counter,  regular  goods  seen  else- 
where at  lower  prices  than  "  specially  reduced 


BORLASE   &   SON  195 

lines  "  alluringly  reticketted.  She  is  even  cap- 
able of  going  away  to  inspect  the  rival  wares  at 
close  quarters  before  deciding.  Mr.  Borlase 
was  beaten  on  his  own  ground.  Again  and 
again  he  came  to  the  rescue  of  shopgirls  in 
straits :  again  and  again,  when  customers  would 
not  wait  to  speak  with  him,  he  fined  luckless 
assistants  for  "  swops."  Even  the  terrors  of 
his  punishment  fell  off  of  late.  Smith  &  Perks 
were  adding  every  week  to  their  staff,  as  new 
departments  reached  the  opening  stage:  and 
Smith  &  Perks  not  only  fed  their  young  men 
and  women  better  than  Mr.  Borlase,  but  did  not 
fine  them,  and  in  the  arrogant  strength  of  their 
reliance  on  new  goods  and  low  prices  closed 
defiantly  every  night  at  six  o'clock.  Borlase  & 
Company's  assistants  were  glad  of  a  chance  to 
change,  and  even  went  surreptitiously  to  regis- 
ter themselves  for  future  vacancies. 

After  the  sale  week,  Mr.  Borlase  sate  him 
down  one  early-closing  afternoon  to  review  his 
bank  account,  and  certain  books  recording 
stock  and  purchases,  that  he  might  fully  grasp 
the  situation  and  see  where  he  stood,  "  what 
reinforcement  he  might  gain  from  hope ;  if  not, 
what  resolution  from  despair."  Careful  exami- 
nation revealed  the  fact  that  "  takings "  had 
fallen  seriously  low,  and  even  with  a  conspicuous 
reduction  of  stock  in  trade  his  balance  at  the 
bank  was  unsatisfactory.  Of  late  Mr.  Borlase 
had  become  dissatisfied  with  his  investments — 
the  business,  for  a  good  many  years,  had  been 
sufficiently  prospering  to  release  many  thou- 


196  BORLASE   &   SON 

sands  of  pounds  from  working  capital — and  had 
some  time  before  sold  Railway  Debentures, 
Local  Loans  and  other  sound  but  unusurious 
holdings,  in  favour  of  certain  South  Amer- 
ican securities  capable  of  yielding,  at  their  cur- 
rent prices,  dividends  not  uncomfortable  to  a 
greedy  mind. 

Mark,  here,  how  tortuous  are  the  operations 
of  Fate  in  her  less  kindly  moods.  Who  would 
have  connected  a  slight  running  down  of  a 
London  stockbroker's  nervous  energy,  making 
calls  on  a  usually  excellent  and  sufficient  blood 
supply,  and  hereby  setting  up  a  slight  and  un- 
perceived  cerebral  anaemia,  with  the  misdoings 
of  a  Spaniardly-descending  politician  just  over 
the  Chilian  frontier?  No  man.  Yet  these  two 
circumstances  ingeniously  combined  for  the  dis- 
comfiture of  a  South  London  draper.  Mr.  Bor- 
lase  had  complained  to  his  broker  of  the  poor 
return  yielded  by  gilt-edged  stocks.  The  judg- 
ment of  his  adviser,  lacking  something  of  its 
usual  soundness  from  the  physical  causes  al- 
ready hinted  at,  overestimated  the  effect  of  a 
recent  rise  in  the  nitrate  of  soda  market.  In- 
vestments secured  on  the  revenues  of  certain 
interested  republics  would  yield,  Mr.  Borlase 
was  informed,  double  the  interest  he  was  now 
acquiring :  and  the  moment  appeared  favourable 
to  a  purchaser.  Government  security  seemed  to 
Mr.  Borlase  government  security  all  the  world 
over:  and  the  considerable  differences  between 
highest  and  lowest  prices  in  the  last  five  years, 
which  ought  to  have  warned  him,  and  would 


BORLASE  &   SON  197 

certainly  have  warned  a  judicious  stockbroker, 
unhai  ried  by  cerebral  anaemia,  only  emphasized 
the  present  cheapness  of  the  investments.  Mr. 
Borlase  had  directed  his  broker  to  sell  and  to 
buy.  And  now,  on  this  Thursday  evening,  when 
Mr.  Borlase  perceived  that  he  must  speedily 
have  money  for  business  purposes,  the  papers 
had  but  one  story.  An  insurrection  had  broken 
out  in  Latin  South  America;  an  agitator  had 
crossed  certain  frontiers  in  one  direction,  a 
president  (hurriedly)  in  the  other ;  all  the  fat 
was  in  the  fire,  and  a  provisional  government, 
strongly  tainted  by  repudiating  tendencies  as 
regards  public  debt,  was  putting  people  up 
against  walls  and  shooting  them  right  and  left. 
Mr.  Borlase's  investments  were  not  merely  de- 
teriorated. They  were  unsaleable.  He  had, 
moreover,  in  a  moment  of  exaltation  been  led 
into  yet  greater  follies.  He  had  bought  largely 
of  Home  Railway  Stocks  for  the  account — 
stocks  which  seemed  certain  to  rise,  but  which 
(his  paper  told  him  only  too  surely)  had  per- 
versely fallen.  On  these,  since  he  was  in  no  po- 
sition to  take  (as  the  phrase  goes)  his  invest- 
ments off  the  market,  he  must  pay  heavy  differ- 
ences, or  at  best  find  the  moneys,  known  to  the 
Stock  Exchange  as  contango,  for  postponing 
until  another  fortnight  his  liability  for  them. 
In  this  contingency,  he  saw  nothing  to  do  but  to 
embark  on  further  risks.  He  got  out  paper 
and  pens  to  write  to  his  broker. 

At    this    moment    his    door    was    nervously 
knocked   upon   by   Mrs.    Dobson,   the   house- 


198  BORLASE   &   SON 

keeper,  Mr.  Borlase's  fervent  ally  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  domestic  economies,  a  naturally 
penurious  taste  combining  in  this  Abdiel  of  the 
emporium  staff  with  her  awe  of  the  master.  But 
she  had  her  difficulties. 

"  I  wished  to  speak,  sir,"  she  began,  as  though 
the  desire  had  now  evaporated — which  indeed  it 
secretly  had  now  she  found  herself  in  the  Pres- 
ence— "  about  the  butcher's  bill." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  with  a  harassed 
scowl.  "What  about  it?" 

"  The  young  men  do  grumble  that  awful  at 
that  there  frozen  mutton,"  the  housekeeper  pur- 
sued. "  They  pleg  my  life  out  over  it." 

"  Eh?"  Mr.  Borlase  was  aroused  to  exclaim. 

"  They  say  as  there's  no  taste  in  it — no 
strength,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  sir.  And 
what  with  them  as  picks  it  about  and  won't  eat 
it,  and  them  as  wants  more  every  meal  because 
they  say  it  isn't,  as  you  may  say,  satisfying,  hav- 
ing so  little  taste,  it  don't  go  no  way.  The  meat 
bill's  awful." 

Mrs.  Dobson  produced  from  its  place  of  con- 
cealment the  subject  of  this  lamentation. 
"Look  at  it!" 

Mr.  Borlase  did  look,  with  indignation. 
"  What  can  you  suggest?  "  he  asked. 

Mrs.  Dobson  plucked  at  her  handkerchief. 
"  I  don't  know  what  to  say,  sir." 

"  Tut,  tut !  What  are  you  here  for  ?  Am  I 
my  own  housekeeper?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  if— if  that  is " 

"  Well,  go  on — go  on." 


BORLASE   &   SON  199 

"  If  we  was  to  try  the  better  kind — I  don't 
mean  English  mutton,  sir  "  (Mrs.  Dobson  was 
shocked  at  the  possible  attribution  to  her  of  a 
proposal  so  base),  "  but  the  other  colonial.  I 
think  it  might  go  further,  and  the  young  men 
wouldn't  grumble  so." 

Mr.  Borlase  passed  a  hand  over  his  outraged 
brow. 

"  I  never — in  my  life — heard  such  a  thing !  " 
he  said  slowly.  "  You  astonish  me,  House- 
keeper. Encourage  such  gluttony  I  never  will ! 
What  are  young  men  and  women  coming  to,  I 
should  like  to  know?  Such  high-stomached 
ideas !  The  object  of  food  is  to  nourish  the  body, 
I  believe,  not  to  tickle  people's  palates.  I  never 
heard  of  such  a  thing!  When  I  was  a  young 
man,  once  I  remember  something  of  the  same 
kind.  A  lot  of  men  threw  up  their  employment 
— quarrelled  with  their  food — struck,  in  fact.  A 
pack  of  dainty  fools!  I  stuck  to  my  work  and 
took  the  place  of  my  seniors  when  they  threw 
themselves  out  of  work.  I  was  manager  of  that 
warehouse  within  a  year.  That's  the  way  I  was 
brought  up — to  eat  the  food  that  was  set  before 
me.  Saucy  rats !  "  he  continued,  reverting  to  the 
present  disturbance.  "  Saucy  rats,  to  quarrel 
with  good  boiled  mutton — and  roasted  meat 
once  a  week,  indeed!  I'll  physic  'em." 

"But  the  butcher's  bill,  sir?"  Mrs.  Dobson 
ventured. 

"  Eh  ?  Let  me  look  at  it.  Six  pounds  thir- 
teen last  week?  Preposterous!  Cut  down  the 
orders  and  make  more  suet  dumplings:  and 


200  BORLASE   &   SON 

don't  come  to  me  with  any  more  tales  from  these 
counter-jumping  epicures,  Housekeeper.  I'm 
busy.  I've  got  worries  enough,  God  knows, 
without  that." 

There  was  a  postman's  knock  upon  the  door 
below. 

"  Bring  me  up  my  letters,"  Mr.  Borlase  com- 
manded, and  the  housekeeper  hurried  off,  while 
her  master  resumed  his  letter-writing  and  the 
study  of  his  unpropitious  bank  book. 

It  was  not  until  he  had  settled,  in  his  own 
mind,  upon  a  course  of  action  which  promised 
to  tide  him  over  his  immediate  difficulties  (as,  in 
point  of  fact,  it  rather  fortuitously  did)  that  he 
turned  to  his  letters  and  opened  them.  There 
were  three:  and  each  embodied  an  inquiry  con- 
cerning the  character  of  an  assistant  who  was 
leaving  Borlase  &  Company's  employment  for 
that  of  some  other  firm. 

"  Damn  it !  "  he  said,  as  he  flung  them  petu- 
lantly from  him,  "  I'll  make  it  a  rule  that  I  give 
no  characters  in  future." 

Was  he  a  sinking  ship?  Were  the  rats,  as 
he  had  just  called  his  miserable  drudges,  leav- 
ing him?  The  empty  parlour,  whither  he  had 
had  his  account  books  conveyed,  seemed 
unaccountably  bleak  and  unhomelike.  If  Stan- 
ton 

Mr.  Borlase,  as  the  earlier  portions  of  this 
narrative  showed  in  more  ways  than  one,  was 
not  a  man  who  cultivated  the  softer  affections. 
It  is  written  that  blessed  is  the  man  who  re- 
membereth  the  poor  and  needy.  Mr.  Borlase 


BORLASE   &   SON  201 

secured  the  blessing  chiefly  by  remembering 
how  to  take  advantage  of  the  poor  and  needy. 
The  nearest  thing  in  his  life  to  a  disinterested 
warming  of  the  heart  had  been  some  emotions 
which  had  somehow  crept  into  it — he  would 
have  been  less  than  physically  human  if  it  could 
have  wholly  excluded  them — when  he  witnessed 
the  passion  of  thwarted  maternity  which  Mrs. 
Borlase  had  lavished  upon  the  child  of  her  adop- 
tion. Little  Stanton's  first  steps,  the  baby  love 
born  in  the  child's  eyes,  to  be  reflected  raptur- 
ously in  his  foster-mother's  as  she  clasped  the 
little  one  to  her  barren  bosom,  might  have  made 
John  Borlase  a  better  man,  if  he  had  given  scope 
to  his  emotions.  The  child's  first  words,  the 
prayers  lisped  at  an  adventitious  mother's 
knee,  stirred  the  nearest  approach  to  true  re- 
ligious feeling  which  this  Churchwarden  had 
ever  experienced.  But  business  and  the  ardour 
of  money-getting  absorbed  him  and  put  a 
speedy  term  to  this  weakness.  Business  had 
been  Mr.  Borlase's  idol — the  Jaganath  that  had 
trampled  on  his  soul.  Business  in  itself  was  the 
bane  of  it.  Not  alone  Mammon — "  Mammon, 
the  least-erected  sprite  that  fell " — but  a  sheer 
passion  for  transaction,  not  uncommon  in  those 
who  have  fought  a  lifetime's  fight  for  wealth, 
crushed  out  and  dried  up  all  the  softer  essences 
of  his  nature.  Nemo  repente  fuit  turpissimus.  It 
takes  a  lifetime  to  make  a  Borlase,  and  he — 
even  he — had  had  moments  of  passion,  moments 
of  folly,  as  well  as  of  softness.  But  the  ruling 
impulse  always  won.  Business  is  an  exacting 


202  BORLASE   &   SON 

god.  It  demands,  of  such  natures  as  this,  all.  The 
child's  prattle  and  noisiness  disturbed  weighty 
cogitations.  At  five  years  old,  Stanton  had  once 
come  weeping  from  his  side.  "  Daddy  always 
sends  me  away,"  he  whispered.  Mrs.  Borlase 
took  him  to  another  room  and  played  with  him 
untiringly  until  he  was  happy  and  ready  for  bed. 
She  never  again  sent  the  boy  to  her  husband. 
Stanton,  with  the  marvellous  self-repression  of 
some  children,  never  intruded  upon  him  again. 
Life  was  lived  as  before.  There  was  no  evident 
loss  of  continuity.  But  Mr.  Borlase  managed 
his  business  uninterrupted,  and  his  wrife  had  her 
boy  all  to  herself,  until  her  sudden  death  obliged 
Mr.  Borlase,  at  a  much  later  date,  to  take  the 
charge  of  Stanton  into  his  own  hands. 

He  had  not  been,  then,  a  very  tender  guar- 
dian. But  whatever  of  solicitude  he  had  to  spare 
from  himself  and  his  business,  Stanton  had  cer- 
tainly received.  Austerely  as  Mr.  Borlase  had 
treated  the  young  man  during  the  brief  period 
of  his  trial  in  the  shop,  he  found  time  and  feeling 
to  miss  him  now.  If  Stanton  had  been  still  at 
home,  the  place  wouldn't  be  quite  so  empty! 
Mr.  Borlase  recalled  with  a  pang  the  little  scene 
of  thirteen  years  ago,  just  hinted  at  above.  With 
a  sudden  insurgence  of  regret,  there  came  to 
him  the  sense  that  he  had  yet  again  sent  the 
boy  away.  For  a  moment  the  impulse  ran 
through  him  to  write  to  Stanton — to  recall  him 
• — to  make  another  effort  with  him.  He  even 
rose,  and  laid  his  hand  upon  the  writing-desk 
which  he  had  been  using  earlier  in  the  evening. 


BORLASE   &   SON  203 

But  Mr.  Borlase  was  no  sentimentalist.  What 
he  had  done  with  the  boy  had  been  maturely 
conceived.  Moreover,  with  things  in  their 
present  condition,  any  distraction  of  his  own 
energies  would  be  injurious  to  business:  and 
business,  after  all,  was  business — the  primary 
interest  of  life. 

"  Pshaw !  "  said  Mr.  Borlase  to  himself.  "  Am 
I  growing  old,  to  hanker  like  this?  " 

He  looked  at  his  watch,  then  round  the  empty 
room  again.  He  did  not  care  to  sit  down. 

The  assistants'  sitting-room,  into  which  he 
put  his  head,  was  empty.  All  the  young  women 
had  gone  out.  The  whole  building  was  depress- 
ingly  silent.  He  was  tired  of  turning  over  and 
considering  and  reconsidering  the  ledger.  He 
had  made  his  plans:  he  cursed  the  necessary 
inaction  of  the  night.  Nothing  could  very  well 
be  done  until  to-morrow.  Then,  for  one  thing, 
he  would  give  the  men  and  girls  his  views  on 
the  impropriety  of  grumbling  at  wholesome  and 
sufficient  food.  The  form  of  an  oration  at  break- 
fast time  began  to  shape  itself  in  his  mind:  he 
would  hold  forth  convincingly  on  the  sin  of 
greediness ;  but  even  this  did  not  raise  Mr.  Bor- 
lase's  spirits.  Most  assuredly  he  meant  to  stand 
no  nonsense.  No  good  that  he  could  remember 
had  ever  come  of  pampering  the  rebellious  appe- 
tites of  shop-assistants.  Probably  the  best  thing 
to  do  was  to  go,  after  all,  and  dine  out  at  a  city 
restaurant,  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  doing  on 
Thursday  evenings.  Ringing,  therefore,  for  the 
housekeeper,  he  countermanded  his  dijnner, 


204  BORLASE   &   SON 

which  was  already  being  laid,  and  put  on  his 
tall  silk  hat — a  hat  which,  like  everything  else 
appertaining  to  Mr.  Borlase,  had,  as  regards  its 
very  shape,  something  uncompromising  in  it. 
It  was  the  sort  of  hat  which  has  an  owner  who 
is  determined  to  maintain  his  rights. 

Mr.  Borlase,  when  he  dined  out,  did  this,  as 
he  did  everything,  thoroughly.  He  ate  and 
drank  to-night,  therefore,  heartily  and  with  dis- 
crimination. As  dinner  slowly  progressed  to  a 
finish  he  felt  easier  in  his  mind.  He  had  had  dif- 
ficulties in  business  before.  Times  of  struggle 
and  of  troublesome  competition  had  come  and 
passed  away.  He  was  too  sure  of  himself,  too 
absolutely  master  of  his  craft,  to  doubt  that  he 
would  weather  this  storm  too.  As  for  this  South 
American  trouble — probably  it  wouldn't  turn 
out  as  badly  as  it  threatened.  Something  would 
be  saved  out  of  the  wreck.  And  in  any  case,  the 
business  could  be  pulled  into  shape  again. 
Though  he  thought  of  business  while  he  ate, 
Mr.  Borlase  did  not  permit  business  absent  to 
interfere  with  duty  present.  As  in  everything 
else,  so  in  dining,  he  stood  no  nonsense. 

"  I  should  think,"  he  remarked  to  the  head 
waiter,  summoned  on  the  presentation  of  his 
bill,  "  that  you  might  consult  your  own  interests 
better  than  to  fob  off  an  old  customer  like  me 
with  the  kind  of  fruit-salad  you  set  before  me 
to-night.  Tinned  pineapple — don't  tell  me:  I 
know  what  I'm  talking  about — and  peaches  half 
ripe,  and  a  mere  wash  of  beggarly,  watery  mar- 


BORLASE   &   SON  205 

aschino.  I  expect  fresh  fruit  and  a  dash  of  green 
Chartreuse  in  a  fruit  salad  for  my  eating.  If 
the  slush  you  sent  down  to  me  to-night  is  good 
enough  for  your  ordinary  customers,  it  isn't 
good  enough  for  me :  mind  that !  " 

Mr.  Borlase  threw  down  the  money  for  his 
dinner,  and  halved  his  usual  tip  when  he  took 
the  change,  by  way  of  marking  displeasure. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

-\ 

NEW   ACQUAINTANCES 

STANTON  found  his  life  in  Mr.  Douglas's  office 
a  much  pleasanter  affair  than  he  had  dared  to 
hope.  Certainly  his  work  was  far  less  exacting 
than  the  labour  that  had  been  required  of  him 
by  his  guardian:  and  when  his  first  diffident 
timidity  wore  off  he  liked  his  new  comrades  suf- 
ficiently well. 

Mr.  Schneider,  who  had  a  taste  for  bullying, 
restrained  by  nervous  fear  of  creating  an  enemy 
who  might  bear  tales,  was  childishly  jealous  of 
every  newcomer,  and  made  Stanton  uncom- 
fortable sometimes.  Thurlow,  who  followed  the 
book-keeper's  lead,  endeavoured  to  resusitate 
his  own  dignity  by  ordering  Stanton  about :  but, 
on  the  whole,  Stanton  was  happy,  and  Lucraft's 
amusing  companionship  delighted  him  inordi- 
nately. Edmund,  who  had  remembered  his 
father's  injunction,  showed  kindliness  towards 
the  lad,  and  in  a  quiet  way  protected  him,  with- 
out allowing  this  fact  to  do  him  a  mischief. 
Stanton  made  mistakes  of  judgment,  and  in- 
fringed the  unwritten,  unspoken  etiquette  which 
Mr.  Schneider  had  erected  in  the  office.  Thus, 
while  the  hour  for  closing  was  six,  and  work  was 
stopped  at,  or  a  little  before,  that  hour,  there 
was  an  understanding  that  the  clerks  should  not 


BORLASE   &   SON  207 

leave  immediately.  They  all  contrived  from 
half-past  five  onward  to  wash  and  prepare  for 
going  home :  the  last  half  hour  hardly  counted, 
except  for  Stanton,  who  had  to  copy  and  to  put 
stamps  on  the  letters  which  he  received  from 
Miss  Chippendale,  and  take  them  to  the  post- 
office.  This  done,  and  the  books  put  in  the  safe 
(it  was  a  point  of  scruple  with  Mr.  Schneider  not 
to  do  this  himself :  "  I  am  not  der  office-boy, 
isn't  it?  "  he  said),  Stanton  had,  on  the  first  few 
evenings,  put  on  his  hat,  said  "  Good-night, 
gentlemen  "  (a  formula  acquired  from  the  ex- 
ample of  Lucraft's  morning  salutation),  and 
gone  home.  Mr.  Schneider  looked  at  Thurlow 
and  sniffed  significantly.  Edmund,  who  walked 
home,  usually  left  a  little  after  five. 

On  the  Monday  of  Stanton's  second  week  he 
was  recalled  by  the  book-keeper,  who  had  dis- 
cussed his  proceedings  with  Thurlow  on  Satur- 
day. The  office  was  nominally  closed  at  two 
on  the  last  day  of  the  week,  but  it  was  Mr. 
Schneider's  custom  to  go  out  to  lunch  about 
half-past  one,  and  expect  the  others  to  await  his 
return  before  leaving.  Stanton,  unwarned  by 
Lucraft,  who  hoped  to  see  this  custom  broken 
down,  went  away  at  two  o'clock.  When,  half 
an  hour  later,  the  other  three  were  rejoined  by 
their  principal,  the  latter  looked  round  the  office, 
as  if  seeking  something. 

"Where  is  der  boy?"  he  inquired. 

"  I  do'  know,"  said  Thurlow.  "  Gone  home, 
I  think." 

"  Dese  new  brooms  from  der  gofernor  sweep 


208  BORLASE   &   SON 

demselves  clean,"  was  Mr.  Schneider's  com- 
ment; and  when,  on  Monday  night,  Stanton 
was  leaving  as  usual,  he  recalled  him,  just  as  he 
held  the  door  to  let  Miss  Chippendale  pass  him. 

"Are  you  in  a  hurry,  Mr.  Stanton?"  en- 
quired the  book-keeper. 

"  No,  sir,"  he  replied  innocently.  "  Do  you 
want  me?  " 

"  No,  I  don'd  want  you,  as  id  happens,"  Mr. 
Schneider  replied  sourly,  "  but  I  t'ought  you 
seemed  radher  in  a  hurry  to  go  away  " — as  if 
this  were  a  reason  for  recalling  him.  Thurlow 
exchanged  a  grin  with  Lucraft. 

"  Because,"  Mr.  Schneider  pursued,  "  vhen  I 
coom  back  on  Sadurday  you  had  also  gone." 

"  I  thought  the  work  was  done,"  said  Stanton. 
"  Did  you  want  me,  then?  " 

"  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  no,  I  didn'd  want 
you,  as  regarts  dat  is  goncernt,"  the  book- 
keeper replied,  rather  disconcerted  by  Stanton's 
own  mystified  air,  which  (as  Stanton  was  uncon- 
scious of  any  omission)  had  nothing  apologetic 
in  it.  "  But  if  I  had  wanted  you,  it  had  been  all 
der  same.  You  had  gone.  Finish!  Isn't  it?" 

"  I'm  very  sorry,  sir,"  said  Stanton,  compre- 
hending at  last  that  he  had  done  something 
wrong.  "  But  as  you  told  me  to  put  the  books 
away,  I  surjposed  that  you  had  done  for  the  day. 
What  time  do  we  close  on  Saturdays  ?  " 

"  P'fT !  I  subbose  you  haf  been  told  from  der 
gofernor  dot  der  office  closes  at  two  o'clock, 
und,  derefore,  you  take  yourself  scarce,"  Mr. 
Schneider  grumbled,  "  mitout  vaiting  to  see  if 


BORLASE   &   SON  209 

dere  wass  anyding  to  do  or  not.  I  can  do  it 
myself.  Finish!  You  couldn't  gif  yourselfs 
more  air,  you  youngsters,"  he  concluded,  with 
a  delicious  implication,  "  not  if — not  if  you  wass 
— der  book-keeper!  Isn't  it?"  he  repeated, 
turning  to  Thurlow  and  Lucraft. 

His  English  always  grew  a  little  worse  when 
he  was  at  all  agitated.  Stanton,  who  perceived 
that  he  had  nothing  to  say,  was  red  and  uncom- 
fortable. He  stood  about — there  was  no  earthly 
thing  to  do — until  Schneider  had  fidgetted  up 
and  down  the  desk  for  some  minutes,  and  even 
Thurlow  had  put  on  his  hat.  Lucraft  said 
"  good-night  "  and  left,  followed  by  Thurlow. 
Last  of  all  the  book-keeper  produced  the  door 
keys,  gave  the  knurl  of  the  combination  lock  on 
the  safe  a  twist  and  tried  the  handle  to  make 
sure  that  it  was  fast,  wiped  his  silk  hat  on  his 
sleeve  and  departed  also,  conducting  Stanton 
to  the  door.  Nothing  was  said  by  either. 

"  Put  your  foot  in  it  last  night,  didn't  you?  " 
said  Lucraft  in  the  morning.  Stanton's  time 
was  not  at  all  fully  occupied,  and  there  were 
corners  in  the  office  where  Lucraft  could  pre- 
tend to  be  busy  and  indulge  Stanton  with  anec- 
dote and  imitation.  He  now  proceeded  to  re- 
enact  the  scene  of  Monday  evening,  with  much 
humour.  Peters,  who  was  press-copying  an  in- 
voice close  at  hand,  and  who  had  been  absent 
on  a  half  day's  leave  overnight,  squirmed  with 
laughter  ill-suppressed. 

"  I  couldn't  make  out  what  I  had  done,"  said 
Stanton.  "  There  was  nothing  to  stay  for.  It's 
14 


210  BORLASE   &   SON 

nothing  to  me  to  stay  half  an  hour  if  he  wants 
me  to,  but  I  wasn't  to  know,  you  know." 

"  Of  course  you  weren't,"  said  Lucraft.  "  It's 
all  damn'  nonsense.  The  old  man  simply  likes 
to  be  fussed  with.  I'll  give  you  the  tip,  though. 
Wait  until  he  has  locked  the  safe.  Then  ask  him 
if  you  can  do  anything  else  for  him.  He'll  say 
'  No : '  then  you  can  clear  out.  He  only  wants 
to  be  asked.  Peters  always  asks  him,  don't  you, 
Pete?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Peters.  "  That's  the  idea.  What 
I  mean,  there  isn't  anything  to  do,  don't  you 
know;  only  he  thinks  you  oughtn't  to  go  with- 
out asking."  Lucraft  would  have  liked  Peters 
to  join  him  in  ignoring  this  wish,  and  constantly 
girded  at  the  latter's  subserviency.  He  hated 
to  wait  about  after  closing  time,  but  did  not 
choose  to  make  himself  the  single  object  of 
Schneider's  animosity. 

Just  then  Edmund  came  up.  Lucraft  re- 
marked, as  if  continuing  a  discussion,  "  I  make 
it  fifteen  pounds  seven  and  threepence  net,  Mr. 
Peters." 

"  All  right.  I'll  try  it  again,"  said  the  latter, 
and  hurried  off. 

"You  know  French,  don't  you,  Stanton?" 
Edmund  asked,  ignoring  this  ruse. 

"  Yes,  a  little,  sir,"  Stanton  replied. 

"  Then  I  wish  you'd  translate  this.  Write  it 
in  red  ink  on  the  margin." 

Stanton  went  to  his  desk  with  the  letter  that 
had  been  handed  to  him.  Soon  encountering  an 
unfamiliar  word,  he  fetched  a  French  dictionary 


BORLASE  &   SON  211 

which  he  had  noticed  lying  on  the  top  of  the 
safe.  This  proceeding  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  book-keeper,  who  immediately  came  and 
looked  without  ceremony  over  his  shoulder, 
with  an  air  of  much  contempt  for  Stanton's 
erudition. 

"  Wat  haf  you  got  to  do,  Mr.  Stanton?  "  he 
enquired. 

"  To  translate  this,"  said  Stanton,  blushing. 
Schneider's  enquiries  somehow  made  him  al- 
ways uncomfortable.  The  book-keeper  treated 
Stanton's  work  for  Edmund  as  a  personal  af- 
front. 

"  Oh,"  he  now  remarked  sourly.  Stanton, 
still  red,  went  on  nervously,  forgetting  words 
quite  familiar  to  him  and  consulting  the  dic- 
tionary. The  book-keeper  walked  away. 

On  receiving  the  translation,  Edmund,  who 
was  rather  diffident  about  his  own  French, 
though  he  probably  knew  more  than  Stanton 
did,  carried  it  to  his  father,  and  presently  drafted 
a  reply,  which  he  bade  Stanton  put  into  French. 

"  I'm  not  sure  I  can  do  it  quite  grammati- 
cally," said  Stanton. 

"  Oh,  you  can  make  it  understandable,"  said 
young  Douglas  kindly.  "  You  translated  their 
letter  very  well." 

So  Stanton  went  to  work  with  good  will  and 
produced,  in  due  course,  an  astonishing  piece  of 
translation.  However,  as  Edmund  had  said,  it 
was  clear  enough  for  practical  purposes.  Mr. 
Douglas,  later  on,  signed  the  letter,  and  it  went 
out  to  be  copied  with  others. 


212  BORLASE   &   SON 

Mr.  Schneider,  who  had  been  in  wait,  ex- 
tracted it  from  the  basket,  and  perused  it  with 
many  sniffs. 

"  Are  you  der  foreign  correspondent,  Mr. 
Stanton  ?  "  he  inquired. 

Stanton  blushed  again.  "  No,  sir.  Mr.  Ed- 
mund asked  me  to  do  what  I  could  with  this : 
that  is  all,"  he  said. 

Mr.  Schneider,  without  answering  him,  called 
Thurlow.  "  I  see  der  gofernor  signs  dis,"  he 
said. 

"Yes?"  replied  Thurlow.  "What's  it 
about?" 

"  P'ff !  I  haven't  got  der  time  to  read  all  der 
letters,"  said  the  other.  "  I  got  my  books  to 
keep.  Gootness  knows,  I  haf  enough  to  do. 
I  don'd  know  what  it  iss  about.  No  more  der 
gofernor:  der  gofernor  is  not  knowing  French, 
isn't  it?" 

"  Not  a  word,"  echoed  Thurlow. 

"  If  der  gofernor  like  to  sign  w'at  he  can'd 
read:  and  if  oder  peoples  likes  to  take  der  re- 
sbonsibility,  it  isn'd  my  fault,  isn'd  it  ?  "  pursued 
the  book-keeper.  "  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott,  I 
would  be  very  sorry  to  take  der  resbonsibility 
mineself,  if  dere  was  in  der  business  a  misdakes, 
isn'd  it?"  He  looked  jealously  at  the  uncom- 
fortable Stanton,  threw  the  letter  back  into  the 
basket  and  walked  away,  grumbling  to  himself, 
to  take  from  his  overcoat  pocket  something 
which  he  slipped  quickly  into  that  of  his  office 
coat,  and  to  disappear  into  the  warehouse.  Lu- 
craft,  with  a  cautious  glance  at  Edmund's  door, 


BORLASE  &   SON  213 

promptly  left  his  seat  and  executed  a  noiseless 
pas  scul  before  the  safe,  expressive  of  keen 
amusement. 

"  My  position  is  being  oontermined  1  "  he  re- 
marked. Peters  and  Thurlow  laughed.  Stan- 
ton  wondered. 

"  You  aren't  up  to  the  old  'un  yet,"  Lucraft 
explained.  "  You  mustn't  mind  his  little  ways. 
He'll  get  used  to  you  after  a  little  while,  and 
then  you  won't  '  oontermine  '  his  position  any 
more.  I  say,  I  didn't  know  you  were  such  a 
scholar,  Stanton.  Have  you  been  to  France?" 

"  No,"  said  Stanton.  "  I  really  don't  know 
much  about  it.  But  I  learned  enough  at  school 
to  translate  a  simple  thing  after  a  fashion :  and 
of  course  Mr.  Edmund  drafted  what  he  wanted 
said,  and  the  governor  knew  all  about  it." 

"  Oh,  it's  all  right,"  said  Lucraft  easily. 
"  Don't  you  mind  the  old  man's  tantrums :  he's 
only  jealous  because  he  wasn't  asked  to  do  it 
himself.  I  expect  he  speaks  French  '  like  a 
dem'd  native,'  same  as  he  does  English.  If  he 
had  been  asked,  he'd  have  groused  and  grum- 
bled all  the  afternoon  about  the  loss  of  time. 
He's  a  contrary  old  buffer." 

A  step  on  the  stair  sent  them  to  their  places. 
Mr.  Schneider  toddled  up,  wiping  his  moustache 
with  his  fingers,  visited  his  overcoat  anew,  and 
finally  returned  to  his  desk.  Here  he  rubbed 
his  ruler  in  his  armpit,  and  appeared  to  be  at 
work. 

Stanton's  admiration  of  Lucraft  grew  every 
day.  The  latter,  with  his  fair,  Saxon  face,  his 
clear  blue  eyes,  his  perfect  health,  and  astonish- 


214  BORLASE  &   SON 

ing  ability  to  do  a  number  of  things  well,  fas- 
cinated him.  They  did  not  often  meet  outside 
the  office;  but  there  was  ample  leisure  for  the 
ripening  of  acquaintanceship  within  it.  Lu- 
craft's  manners,  his  penmanship,  his  astute  mas- 
tery of  office-craft,  the  unfailing  readiness  of  his 
wit,  were  the  subjects  of  Stanton's  despairing 
imitation.  It  seemed  to  him  (as  he  told  Wick- 
sted)  that  never  had  he  met  with  such  a  man. 

"  He  can  do  any  tiling,"  he  said  to  his  friend. 
"  He  has  put  me  up  to  no  end  of  dodges  in  my 
work,  and  he  can  juggle  better  than  Cinque- 
valli  "  (a  performer  whose  feats,  here  somewhat 
underestimated,  Stanton  had  witnessed  at  a 
music-hall  in  company  with  Peters).  "  I  never 
saw  such  a  chap,  Wicksted." 

"  He  must  be  worth  knowing,  from  your  ac- 
count," said  Wicksted. 

"  I'm  rather  surprised  that  he  stays  in  an  of- 
fice," said  Stanton,  with  admiration.  "  I  should 
think  he  could  make  money  anywhere.  He  can 
keep  you  laughing  for  an  hour  at  a  time:  and 
he  can  imitate  Schneider's  step  or  the  gover- 
nor's, coming  up  the  office,  to  the  life.  Peters 
was  reading  a  newspaper  under  his  desk  lid,  be- 
fore Schneider  got  back  from  lunch  to-day,  and 
Lucraft  walked  out  from  behind  the  screen  with 
exactly  Mr.  Douglas's  step.  He  made  Peters 
jump  out  of  his  skin  nearly.  It  was  an  awful 
lark." 

"  Who's  Peters?  "  asked  Mrs.  Wicksted,  who 
was  visiting  Stanton  with  her  husband  in  Mrs. 
Bonnington's  parlour,  borrowed  for  the  even- 
ing. 


BORLASE   &   SON  215 

"  He's  the  third  clerk,"  said  Stanton. 

"  Why!  "  exclaimed  Wicksted.  "  I  have  been 
trying  to  remember  for  a  long  time  what  I  knew 
of  Douglas's.  Of  course,  that's  where  Peters's 
brother  was." 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  asked  Stanton. 

"  Why — it  was  before  your  time,  Stanton,  and 
after  yours,  Edie,"  he  explained.  "  We  had  a 
fellow  named  Peters  in  the  shop.  Borlase  sacked 
him  for  stopping  out  all  night  and  coming  back 
late  in  the  morning,  half  dead.  He'd  been 
drinking  with  this  brother  of  his.  I  should  think 
he  is  a  dangerous  man,  Stanton." 

"  I've  never  seen  him  drinking,"  said  Stanton. 
"  I  went  to  the  Cosmopolitan  with  him  the  other 
night,  as  I  told  you,  and  we  only  drank  a  bottle 
of  beer  between  us." 

"  What  sort  of  looking  man  is  he  ?  "  asked 
Wicksted. 

"  Oh,  stout,  rather  bilious  looking.  Wears 
a  little  moustache,"  said  Stanton. 

"Dark?" 

"  No,  brown.  He's  not  a  bad  sort  Nothing 
like  Mr.  Lucraft,  of  course,  but  he  knows  a 
thing  or  two.  One  thing  I  can  tell  you.  He's 
'  near/  Never  wastes  a  halfpenny." 

"That's  our  Peters's  brother!"  said  Wick- 
sted triumphantly.  "  There's  a  family  of  'em 
evidently.  Our  Peters  was  a  great  hand  at  sav- 
ing. Well,  he  had  a  savings  bank  account  and 
put  money  away  out  of  his  screw  at  our  place! 
You  don't  need  telling  more  than  that !  " 

"  I  should  think  not  and  all,"  said  Mrs.  Wick- 
sted, with  (I  fear)  a  sniff. 


216  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Well,  he  got  his  brother  the  bag,  anyhow," 
Wicksted  resumed,  reverting  to  Douglas's  Pet- 
ers. "  And  I  don't  know  what  became  of  him." 

"  Peters  never  mentions  him,"  said  Stanton ; 
"  and  I  don't  suppose  he  knows  I  came  from  the 
same  place.  I'll  ask  him  about  it." 

He  took  an  opportunity  of  doing  so  next  day. 
"  Oh,  were  you  at  Borlase's  ?  "  said  Peters,  when 
Stanton  explained  his  enquiry.  "  Rotten  hole, 
isn't  it?" 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Stanton. 

"  Oh,  bad  grub,  late  hours,  and  a  lot  to  do," 
said  Peters.  "  At  least,  what  I  mean,  so  my 
brother  used  to  say." 

"  I'm  afraid  the  men  and  girls  aren't  very  well 
fed,"  said  Stanton,  forgetting  for  a  moment  that 
his  own  position  in  the  Borlase  establishment 
was  not  to  transpire.  Then,  recollecting  this, 
he  added  lamely :  "  I  mean,  yes :  we  did  have  to 
work  rather  hard." 

"  My  brother  Bob  left  there  some  time  ago," 
said  Peters.  "  He  got  into  bad  habits — used 
to  come  borrowing  money.  I've  lost  sight  of 
him  lately.  He  came  here  once  or  twice,  but  I 
told  him  I  wouldn't  have  it.  You  know,  I  used 
to  knock  about  a  bit  myself — a  fellow  must  see 
life  and  sow  his  wild  oats,  you  know,  but  there's 
a  moderation  in  things,  and  my  brother  let  him- 
self go  rather."  Mr.  Peters  considered  that  in 
going  to  several  music-halls,  and  walking 
through  Piccadilly  before  rinding  his  way  home 
thereafter,  he  had  seen  nearly  as  much  as  life 
has  to  show.  It  is  an  opinion  not  uncommon. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

NEW   FRIENDS 

EXCEPT  for  their  occasional  business  contact — 
as  where  Stanton  had  to  collect  the  day's  type- 
written letters  for  copying,  and  ultimate  des- 
patch by  post — Miss  Chippendale  for  some 
weeks  saw  very  little  of  the  new  clerk.  She 
noted  with  displeasure  his  ripening  acquaintance 
with  Lucraft,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  had 
fallen  into  the  lax,  easy-going  ways  of  the  office, 
as  fostered  by  that  resourceful  person.  When 
at  last  her  interest  found  its  opportunity,  it  was 
through  an  accident  which  tended,  somewhat, 
to  raise  her  estimate  of  him.  Having  observed 
by  his  reference  that  he  came  from  a  draper's 
shop,  she  was  anxious  to  inform  herself  concern- 
ing the  inner  life  of  these  emporia.  The  demo- 
cratic society  of  the  studio  was  greatly  inter- 
ested in  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  laborious 
life,  condemning  modern  systems  as  iniquitous 
and  demoralising;  longing  for  the  discovery  of 
means  by  which  the  moral  and  physical  welfare 
of  workers  might  be  promoted;  severely  con- 
demnatory of  mercantile  chicane. 

Stanton's  timid,  boyish  nature  covered  more 
than  she  had  had  as  yet  any  chance  of  divining, 
though  his  face  seemed  to  her  accustomed  eye, 
already  trained  to  some  degree  of  observation 


2i8  BORLASE  &   SON 

by  the  nature  of  her  domestic  environment,  to 
have  more  in  it,  for  example,  than  the  faces  of 
Thurlow  or  Peters.  Certainly  Lucraft,  with  all 
his  cleverness,  had  not  perceived  as  much. 
Stanton  was  of  an  unlimited  plasticity.  Lucraft, 
had  no  other  influences  supervened,  would  have 
done  more  with  Stanton  than  he  had  any  chance 
of  doing  with  Edmund  Douglas.  The  latter 
was  a  man  of  the  world  compared  with  poor 
Stanton.  He  could  also  have  done  more  than 
with  Peters  and  Thurlow,  because  Stanton  had 
more  in  him.  Stanton  might,  in  time,  have  be- 
come as  unscrupulous  as  Lucraft  himself,  though 
he  would  never  have  been  as  cleverly  crafty. 
And  to  say  this  is,  in  a  way,  to  pay  new  tribute 
to  Mr.  Lucraft;  for  Stanton  had  been,  thanks 
to  Mr.  Borlase's  money,  far  better  educated  than 
any  of  his  colleagues :  he  had  brains  and  an  in- 
telligence which  he  did  not  despise  as  they  did 
theirs.  Miss  Chippendale  would  certainly  not 
have  encountered  either  Peters  or  Thurlow  (or 
even  Lucraft)  as  she  eventually  encountered 
Stanton,  spending  a  Saturday  afternoon  in  the 
British  Museum. 

She  found  him  near  the  place  where  they  take 
your  umbrella  away  from  you  (unless  you  are 
going  to  the  Library),  looking  rather  aimlessly 
up  the  side  staircase.  He  was  paying  his  first 
visit  to  the  national  curiosity  shop,  and  did  not 
quite  know  where  to  begin.  Seeing  Miss  Chip- 
pendale, he  coloured  and  took  off  his  hat  awk- 
wardly, with  an  impulse  towards  flight.  Cer- 
tainly it  was  with  no  eagerness  to  make  an  op- 


BORLASE  &   SON  219 

portunity  of  this  chance  encounter  that  he  found 
himself  talking  to  her :  rather,  he  had  feared  lest 
it  should  seem  uncivil  to  let  her  pass  in  silence, 
though  he  was  horribly  embarrassed  at  having 
(he  conceived)  to  enter  upon  a  conversation.  It 
was  made,  however,  easier  for  him  than  he  could 
have  hoped;  and  Mary  liked  him  all  the  better 
for  his  boy's  shyness. 

"  Do  you  '  read  '  here,  too,  then?  "  she  asked, 
when  he  had  managed  to  say  that  the  museum 
was  an  enormous  place. 

"  '  Read  '  ?  "  he  enquired.  "  Oh,  I  see  what 
you  mean.  No,  I  haven't  a  reading-room 
ticket.  I  just  came  in  to  look  at  things." 

"And  what  'things'  have  you  looked  at?" 
she  asked  him.  "  Are  you  interested  in  any 
particular  subject  here?" 

"  No ;  that  is,  I  hardly  know  enough  to  have 
a  special  subject,  Miss  Chippendale,"  he  replied. 
"  I  thought  this  stone  vase  rather  funny,"  he 
added,  trying  to  find  something  to  say — it 
seemed  so  very  unintelligent  to  have  gathered 
no  impressions  at  all — "  though  I  don't  know 
why  they  call  it  a  crater." 

"  A  crater  is  a  cup,"  said  Mary.  "  That's  all. 
I  think  it  is  the  Greek  word.  Have  you  been  to 
see  the  Elgin  Marbles  yet?" 

"No.  Are  they  upstairs?"  he  asked,  won- 
dering vaguely  what  sort  of  geological  speci- 
mens she  might  be  referring  to.  Wicksted  had 
been  hitherto  his  only  point  of  contact  with  the 
fine  arts:  and  Wicksted  did  not  work  from  the 
antique. 


220  BORLASE  &   SON 

"  No.  They  are  on  this  floor,"  Miss  Chippen- 
dale said.  "  Come :  I'll  show  them  to  you.  My 
brother  will  very  likely  be  there :  he  is  in  here, 
somewhere,  and  promised  to  meet  me  at  tea- 
time.  My  brother  is  a  sculptor,  you  know,"  she 
added,  as  they  passed  through  the  long  gallery 
of  Roman  emperors  with  undesirable  counten- 
ances— though  there  was  no  perceptible  means 
by  which  Stanton  could  have  known  what  she 
told  him.  She  stopped  later  to  show  the  head 
of  Herennia  Etruscilla — you  will  find  it,  if  they 
haven't  rearranged  the  gallery  yet,  just  round 
a  corner  in  the  long  gallery. 

"  That's  one  of  our  gems,"  she  assured  him, 
with  a  cicerone's  proprietorship.  "  Isn't  it  won- 
derfully modern  looking?  It  wouldn't  be  made 
in  the  least  incongruous  by  a  bonnet !  Here  "  (as 
they  passed  farther  on,  turning  to  their  right) 
"is  archaic  Greek  work — it  has  something  Egyp- 
tian or  Assyrian  about  it,  hasn't  it?  You  know, 
art  began  down  there,  somewhere :  but  it  needed 
Greece  to  make  it  really  glorious,  as  Greece  de- 
veloped. Here  are  the  Marbles.  There !  Aren't 
they  grand?  Do  you  know  anything  about 
sculpture  ?  "  She  looked  at  him  interrogatively, 
good-naturedly  anxious  to  make  him  comfort- 
able, and  to  draw  out  what  she  felt  sure  was  in 
him. 

"  I  don't  think  I  do  know  much  about  it,"  he 
said.  "  I  don't  care  for  statues  very  much." 

"  I  should  think  not,  in  London,"  she  said. 
"  But  look.  You  like  these,  don't  you?  " 

"  They're — they're  rather — damaged,  aren't 
they?"  he  ventured. 


BORLASE   &   SON  221 

She  controlled  herself.  "  Well,  they  are  a 
little  out  of  repair.  You  know,  they  came  from 
the  Parthenon :  my  brother  calls  them  '  the  na- 
tional swag ' — because  we  rather  stole  them, 
you  know.  It  is  a  crime  to  have  brought  them 
away;  but  I'm  afraid  I'm  rather  glad  we  com- 
mitted it." 

"  Why?  "  he  asked  rather  bleakly,  not  having 
very  well  understood. 

"  Because  they  are  so  beautiful.  Besides,  so 
many  more  people  will  see  them  here,"  she  ex- 
plained. 

Stanton,  whose  aesthetic  education  had  been 
neglected,  looked  enquiringly,  and  perhaps 
rather  vacantly,  at  her.  "You  don't  see  it?" 
she  interpreted.  "  No.  But  you  see  you  are 
only  looking  at  them  for  the  first  time.  If  you 
would  come  again  and  again,  you  would  soon 
get  to  know  them,  and  their  loveliness  would 
eat  its  way  into  you!  But  see:  look  how  that 
drapery,  all  broken  as  it  is,  hangs.  Look  how 
it  clings  to  the  figure  of  that  Fate — they  think 
they  are  Fates — why,  it  has  almost  the  illusion 
of  transparency !  "  She  warmed  to  her  subject, 
looking  from  his  eyes  to  the  marbles  with  eager 
championship.  "  I  wish  my  brother  were  here," 
she  concluded.  "  He  understands  them :  he 
would  make  you  see  the  beauty  that  is  in  them. 
But  you  need  to  see  them  often." 

"  That  drapery  is  clever,  as  you  say,"  Stanton 
admitted,  ineptly.  "  But  I  haven't  got  used  to 
all  this  mutilation :  I  can't  allow  for  what  is  miss- 
ing." 


222  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  You  will  if  you  stay  with  them,"  she  assured 
him.  "  And  I  can  promise  you  that  the  happi- 
ness they'll  give  you  is  well  worth  the  trouble  of 
coming.  I  can't  get  myself  away  from  them, 
sometimes,  and  my  brother  and  I  often  come  in 
here  just  to  look  at  this  frieze  alone.  It  is  full 
of  things.  There  are  a  hundred  and  ten  horses 
in  it,  and  no  two  of  them  in  the  same  attitude !  " 

Stanton  stooped  to  look  at  it.  "  It  is  very 
kind  of  you  to  show  it  to  me,  Miss  Chippen- 
dale," he  said,  and  would  have  liked  to  add, 
"  but  don't  let  me  waste  your  time,"  only  he 
feared  lest  this  should  make  her  think  he  wished 
to  escape.  He  no  longer  did  wish  it.  To  see 
things,  and  have  them  explained  to  him,  was 
proving  much  more  agreeable  than  the  some- 
what arid  Saturday  afternoons  he  had  spent 
lately  at  South  Kensington,  the  National  Gal- 
lery and  other  public  places  of  exhibition. 

"  No,  it  isn't,"  Miss  Chippendale  said,  in  her 
uncompromising  way.  "  I  came  to  look  for  my 
brother;  and  now  I'm  going  to  the  reading- 
room.  If  you  care  to  find  your  way  back  here 
at  five,  I  shall  meet  you  here  again,  and  I'll  in- 
troduce you  to  my  brother.  Don't  come  if  you 
don't  want  to,  though." 

"  I  should  like  to,  very  much,"  said  Stanton, 
and  she  looked  at  his  face  to  see  whether  this 
was  a  polite  acquiescence  or  an  expression  of 
real  interest.  Had  it  been  the  former,  she  was 
likely  to  have  told  him  so;  the  frank  rough 
habit  of  the  community  she  lived  in  was  not 
easily  put  off.  But  Stanton's  honest,  sincere- 


BORLASE  &   SON  223 

looking  eyes  saved  him.  He  wondered  that  he 
had  not  before  noted  the  prettiness  of  hers,  and 
their  fine  shape. 

"  I'll  take  you  to  the  reading-room,  then,"  he 
said. 

"  There  is  no  occasion,"  she  replied.  She  dis- 
liked the  sort  of  deference  which  implies  that  a 
woman  needs  "  looking  after."  "  But  you  may 
come  all  the  same,"  she  added,  relenting  when 
his  face  fell ;  "  and  you  can  go  into  the  Gren- 
ville  Library.  You  will  see  some  interesting 
things  there." 

Arrived  at  their  first  meeting-place,  she 
pointed  out  the  collection  she  had  named.  "  Do 
you  care  for  poetry?"  she  asked,  pausing. 

"  I  am  extremely  fond  of  it,"  he  said  warmly, 
glad  to  have  reached  a  subject  on  which  he  did 
providentially  possess  ideas.  Wicksted,  in  their 
bookish  talks,  had  imparted  to  Stanton  much 
of  his  own  superficial  taste  for  verse,  when  it  ran 
smoothly  and  was  either  not  too  profound  or 
else  so  profound  that  the  music  of  it  satisfied 
them  of  itself,  and  asked  no  effort  of  exact  com- 
prehension. 

"  Well,  then,  if  you  go  rather  far  through, 
and  turn  down  that  recess  to  the  right,  you  will 
see  the  original  manuscript  of  Gray's  '  Elegy,' ' 
she  announced. 

"  Really  ?  "  he  said,  with  enthusiasm.  "  I  shall 
like  that" 

"  There  are  numbers  of  others,  too,"  said 
Mary.  "  I  only  mentioned  the  '  Elegy  '  because 
it  is  the  most  famous." 


224  BQRLASE   &   SON 

"  And  the  most  beautiful,  surely ! "  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"  Yes,  perhaps  it  is,"  she  admitted.  "  It's 
wonderfully  finished,  isn't  it?  Like  a  miniature 
on  ivory — flawless.  Well,  I  won't  say  good-bye, 
if  you  mean  to  come  and  meet  us." 

'  Thank  you  ever  so  much,"  he  found  readi- 
ness enough  to  say.  "  I'm  awfully  glad  I  met 
you,  Miss  Chippendale." 

She  went  off,  with  her  short,  quick  nod,  like  a 
bird  pecking;  and  Stanton  wandered  rather  be- 
latedly into  the  Grenville  Library,  stopping  to 
look  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  letter,  at  Magna 
Charta,  and  the  rich  laboriousness  of  the  monk- 
ish illuminatings.  \Yhen  he  looked  at  his  watch 
presently  he  was  sensible  of  a  disappointment 
to  find  that  it  was  only  half  past  three — and  he 
had  already  found  the  "  Elegy,"  wondered  at  its 
neatness,  and  read  as  much  of  it  as  could  be  seen 
in  its  glass  passepartout.  The  place  was  very 
still  and  almost  deserted.  A  shabby  man,  with 
long  hair,  pored  over  one  of  the  black  texts ;  an 
attendant  moved  a  ladder,  on  wheels,  across  the 
matting,  and  climbed  to  one  of  the  upper  recep- 
tacles. Coming  quickly  round  a  case,  Stanton 
found  a  man  and  a  tall  girl  in  mourning,  who 
had  forgotten  manuscripts,  and  texts,  and  his- 
torical documents  alike.  They  stood  hand  in 
hand  and  looked  into  each  other's  eyes. 

Stanton  pulled  out  his  watch  again.  It  was 
only  five  and  twenty  minutes  to  four.  He  went 
out  into  the  Central  Hall,  determined  to  try  the 
upper  galleries,  and  see  what  these  might  con- 
tain. 


BORLASE  &   SON  225 

In  a  little  time,  as  he  wandered  up  and  down 
among  the  coins  and  statuettes,  and  presently 
tried  the  Natural  History  collection,  and  the 
bones,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  must  have  ex- 
hausted the  interest  he  was  capable  of  feeling 
in  the  place,  so  bored  and  lonely  did  he  feel ;  by 
twenty  minutes  to  five  he  was  examining  the 
Elgin  Marbles  afresh,  and  persuading  himself 
that  they  had,  after  all,  a  certain  charm.  A 
loose-limbed,  athletic-looking  man,  with  a  beard 
en  Vandyck,  a  low  collar,  and  a  necktie  of  soft 
terra-cotta  silk,  was  looking  with  critical  satis- 
faction at  the  central  group — stepping  back  and 
holding  his  head  aside  to  catch  some  individual 
view  of  the  Fates,  and  pulling  the  ends  of  a  fierce 
moustache  as  he  paused  to  take  in  some  detail 
that  had  given  him  pleasure. 

Stanton  walked  round  also  with  the  stealthy 
tread  appropriate  to  churches  and  other  reve- 
rend edifices — a  step  which  the  Museum  pal- 
pably invites  even  when  it  is  already  noisy  with 
the  ring  of  heedless  heels.  The  aloofness  and 
cold  beauty  of  the  marbles  insensibly  affected 
him,  and  as  he  passed  behind  the  stranger  when 
the  latter  was  making  one  of  his  backward  steps, 
Stanton  was  not  alert  enough  to  avoid  him,  and 
there  was  a  sudden  corps  a  corps  which  discon- 
certed them  both. 

"  Sorry,"  said  the  tall  man,  in  a  strong  bass 
voice.  "  My  fault,  I  think." 

"  No,  mine,"  Stanton  politely  answered — he 
was  always  ready  to  take  upon  himself  the 
15 


226  BORLASE   &   SON 

blame  of  a  little  accident.  "  I  ought  to  have 
looked  where  I  was  going." 

"  Ought  you  ?  "  said  the  other.  "  Well,  per- 
haps so.  Jolly  group,  isn't  it?  " 

"  I  begin  to  think  so,"  Stanton  admitted. 
"  But  I  never  saw  it  until  this  afternoon." 

"  Really?  "  said  the  other.  "  Well,  these  head- 
less ladies  are  worth  knowing.  You  must  have 
been  '  very  pleased  to  meet  them/  as  the  Amer- 
icans say."  He  walked  off  with  his  determined 
stride,  and  Stanton  saw  that  it  was  to  meet  Miss 
Chippendale,  who  had  just  come  into  the  room. 

"  So  you  found  each  other !  "  she  exclaimed, 
drawing  them  together  with  her  look.  "  How 
did  you  manage  that?" 

"  It  was  an  effect  of  gravitation,"  replied  her 
brother  (for,  of  course,  that  is  who  the  stranger 
was).  "  But  whom,  by  the  way,  have  I  found  ?  " 

"  Why — Mr.  Stanton,"  Mary  answered.  "  I 
thought  Mr.  Stanton  must  have  introduced  him- 
self. This  is  my  brother,  Mr.  Stanton." 

The  men  shook  hands.  Chippendale's  grasp 
was  like  the  grab  of  some  flexible  iron  thing. 
" '  I'm  very  pleased  to  meet  you,'  as  you  say 
the  Americans  say,"  was  what  Stanton  repro- 
duced, smiling. 

"You  know  who  Mr.  Stanton  is,  Will?" 
Mary  remarked,  in  her  unembarrassed  way. 
"  My  new  colleague.  I  found  him  here  this 
afternoon,  and  I  hope  he  is  coming  home  to  tea 
with  us." 

"Is  he?"  Chippendale  answered,  turning  to 
Stanton. 


BORLASE   &   SON  227 

"  Stanton's  shyness  reawoke.  "  Thank  you — 
I  shall — be  very  pleased,"  he  said,  however. 
They  were  passing  through  the  galleries  now. 

"  I  told  Mr.  Stanton  you  would  tell  him  all 
about  the  statuary,"  Mary  continued,  "  and  I 
hoped  he  was  asking  you." 

"  No.  We  simply  ran  into  each  other,  and 
had  just  done  mutually  apologising  when  you 
came,"  said  Will.  "  But  I  don't  know  that  there 
is  any  explaining  to  do.  Mr.  Stanton  was  so 
interested  that  he  nearly  let  me  crush  him." 
He  pointed,  however,  to  what  occupied  a  recess 
in  the  gallery  beside  them.  "  That's  rather  a 
good  cast  of  the  Venus  of  Milo,"  he  said.  "  But 
the  marbles  are  better  worthy  of  Mr.  Stanton's. 
attention.  They  are  authentic,  you  see,  and  this 
is  merely  a  copy." 

"  But  the  copy  is  handsome,  too,"  said  Stan- 
ton  vaguely. 

"  I've  heard  it  called  '  perfectly  elegant,'  "  said 
Chippendale,  who  had  had  some  Americans  as 
sitters ;  and  Mary  laughed.  "  But  it  is  really 
hopeless,  making  cast  from  old  statuary,"  Chip- 
pendale continued.  "  This  thing,  now.  It  has 
the  form,  and  approximately  the  colour,  of  the 
real  Venus  in  the  Louvre  at  Paris.  But  it  is  no 
more  the  Venus  than  it's  a  gargoyle.  The  Venus, 
eh,  Mary?" 

Mary  sighed  reminiscently.  "  The  real  one," 
Chippendale  continued — "  well,  it  is  real,  and 
this  is  a  copy.  That's  all  you  can  say.  There  is 
no  copy,  really.  She  can't  be  copied.  She's 
inimitable.  She  lives  in  a  room  by  herself. 


228  BORLASE   &   SON 

(You  haven't  been  to  Paris,  Mr.  Stanton?  No?) 
Well,  in  a  room  by  herself,  at  the  end  of  a  long 
gallery.  You  see  her  as  soon  as  you  have  passed 
the  stairs,  where  the  Winged  Victory  is.  As 
you  come  down  the  gallery,  you  know,  she 
grows  clearer  and  clearer,  and  you  really  see 
her." 

"  Yes ;  and  you  sit  down  on  the  seat  to  the 
right  of  her  and  just  drink  in  her  loveliness," 
Mary  added,  catching  his  enthusiasm.  "  She  is 
lovely  and  tender  on  that  side.  On  the  other 
side,  she  is  stern  and  severe — the  Venus  who 
crushes  and  breaks.  Eh,  Will?  " 

"  It  is  believed,"  said  Chippendale,  senten- 
tiously,  "  that  Venus  is  sometimes  a  very  stern 
goddess,  Mr.  Stanton.  She  mustn't  keep  people 
from  their  tea,  however."  And  they  walked 
briskly  on,  passing  through  the  glass-boxed 
door,  and  crossing  the  vast  courtyard,  where 
the  tame,  dilatory  pigeons  hardly  moved  from 
their  path.  By  the  time  they  had  walked  down 
Great  Russell  Street  and  were  at  the  door  of 
the  house  where  the  Chippendales  lived,  Stanton 
found  himself  disembarrassed  and  familiar.  Will 
Chippendale's  grave  mockery  and  Mary's  frank 
companionableness  put  him  at  his  ease.  They 
climbed  the  numerous  stairs  together,  Will  last, 
dragging  up  a  large  brown  pitcher  of  water 
from  the  kitchen.  Stanton,  who  thought  he  had 
never  entered  such  an  odd,  interesting  room, 
saw  them  get  tea  ready.  "  We're  a  couple  of 
bachelors,  Mr.  Stanton,"  Mary  told  him,  "  and 
do  our  own  housework." 


BORLASE   &   SON  229 

"  Thus  the  domestic-servant  problem  is 
solved ! "  Chippendale  added,  cutting  brown 
bread  and  butter.  "  I  think  we  might  have  the 
other  window  open,  Mary.  Do  you  mind, 
Stanton?  You  might  open  it."  Mr.  Chippen- 
dale's foible  was  that  he  could  rarely  get  enough 
fresh  air:  any  apartment  under  his  control  was 
a  perfect  cave  of  Boreas. 

So  they  took  tea  in  what  did  appear  to  Stan- 
ton  rather  a  high  wind;  and  afterwards,  by 
Mary's  suggestion,  went  into  Will's  studio,  that 
she  might  show  their  new  friend  her  brother's 
\vork.  Stanton  found  it  all  intensely  interesting. 
"  I  never  saw  anything  like  this  before,"  he  said. 
"  I  thought  sculpture  was  all  marble." 

"  No.  Marble  isn't  properly  sculpture,"  said 
Chippendale.  "  It's  carving.  Shaping  things 
with  one's  fingers — putting  on,  taking  off,  modi- 
fying— that  is  sculpture :  in  the  clay.  You  look 
— and  you  try  to  reproduce :  if  it  isn't  right,  you 
change  it,  see?"  He  made  that  little  semicir- 
cular gesture  with  the  thumb  peculiar  to  paint- 
ers and  sculptors.  "  In  marble,  you  measure, 
chop,  rub  down  and  copy.  Once  done,  it  can't 
be  altered.  Mary,  don't  make  me  talk  shop," 
he  concluded  abruptly.  "  Come."  They  re- 
turned to  the  other  room,  and  Stanton  was  al- 
lowed to  help  them  "  wash  up."  He  was  de- 
lighted with  the  unknown,  informal  life,  and  was 
surprised  to  find  how  late  it  had  become  when 
he  felt  that  the  time  had  arrived  for  leaving,  and 
rose  to  say  so. 

"  Have  you  really  to  go  ?  "  Mary  asked. 


230  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Because  we  don't  want  you  to  go,  if  you 
haven't,"  Chippendale  added. 

Stanton  wished  extremely  to  remain.  "  I  was 
going  out  somewhere  with  Lucraft  and  Peters," 
he  said. 

Mary  did  not  speak.  Chippendale,  who  knew 
of  and  detested  Lucraft  by  reputation,  looked 
at  her.  "  Well — if  you've  promised  to  go — " 
he  said. 

"  I  don't  know  that  it  is  quite  that,"  said 
Stanton;  "and  I'd  far  rather  stay."  He  re- 
flected a  moment.  "  They  won't  wait  for  me : 
Lucraft  never  waits  for  anyone,  he  told  me  so. 
I'll  say  I  wasn't  very  well  or  something,"  he  con- 
cluded lamely.  "  It  will  be  all  right." 

Mary  frowned.  "  Don't  you  think  it  would 
be  all  righter  if  you  said  nothing  that  was  not 
true?"  she  suggested  bluntly. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

NEW   INFLUENCES 

THIS  foregathering  brought  Stanton  into  an 
acquaintanceship  destined  to  influence  him  in 
more  ways  than  one.  It  opened  up  before  him, 
indeed,  an  entirely  new  manner  of  thought.  Life 
was  exhibited  to  him  through  a  medium  hitherto 
undreamed  of.  He  had  been  instructed  at 
school.  He  was  to  be  educated  now. 

At  first,  his  sensations  were  only  of  interest, 
of  delight.  The  conversation  of  his  new  friends 
gave  him  the  pleasure  that  he  had  hitherto  de- 
rived only  from  books :  his  mind  was  expanded 
by  contact  with  minds  more  cultured  than  he 
had  known.  The  extent  of  their  own  reading, 
and  their  assimilation  of  it,  astonished  him. 
"  They  are  learned,"  he  said  to  Wicksted,  when 
the  latter  came  alone  to  see  him  in  his  bedroom 
one  Thursday  evening. 

Thursday  was  early-closing  day  in  the  Sub- 
urb, and  Mr.  Borlase,  an  unflinching  sweater 
of  his  workpeople  on  all  lawful  occasions,  was 
yet  a  prop  of  the  local  movement.  Indeed,  the 
emporium,  excelling  its  compeers,  was  closed 
as  early  as  at  three  o'clock,  a  circumstance  re- 
garded as  bearing  witness  to  the  benevolent 
public  spirit  of  the  proprietor,  and  one  of  the 
grounds  on  which,  some  years  earlier,  a  testi- 


232  BORLASE   &   SON 

monial  had  been  presented  to  Mr.  Borlase  at  the 
Vestry. 

"  And  you  would  enjoy  them,  too,"  Stanton 
averred  to  his  friend.  "  They  simply  live  on 
art.  Mr.  Chippendale  is  a  sculptor.  I  have  been 
in  his  studio  and  seen  him  work.  It  is  fearfully 
interesting :  and  their  talk — oh,  it's  wonderful !  " 
He  overflowed.  "  They  seem  to  have  read  every- 
thing :  they  talk  about  Shakespeare  and  Brown- 
ing just  as  you  or  I  might  talk  of  the  news  in  the 
papers." 

Wicksted's  eyes  brightened  with  interest. 
Literature  was  his  first  love — literature  vora- 
ciously devoured,  ill-assimilated,  less  than  half 
comprehended,  tritely  quoted,  miscellaneously 
selected.  Stanton  told  him  for  the  first  time 
of  systematic  reading,  and  of  reading  absorbed 
into  the  understanding  as  a  mental  pabulum. 
Man,  it  now  appeared,  did  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  issued  out  of  the 
mouth  of  Genius.  Stanton  had  hastened  to  ac- 
quire ideas.  He  had  not  given  himself  time  to 
acquire  tastes,  but  his  own  mind  was  persuaded 
that  he  already  had  them.  "  Life,"  he  repeated 
to  Wicksted,  "  is  ugly.  It  might  be  so  beauti- 
ful !  All  Nature  is  beautiful — a  wet  day  as  well 
as  a  fine  one,  if  people  had  the  eyes  to  see  it. 
There  is  room,"  it  had  been  conveyed  to  him, 
"  for  art  in  daily  life."  Wicksted  thought 
vaguely  of  the  illustrated  papers  and  of  coloured 
photographs. 

The  latter,  Stanton  had  learned,  were  not  ad- 
mirable. Bits  of  old  china,  which  could  be 


BORLASE   &   SON  233 

acquired  cheaply  in  fragmentary  condition  and 
put  together,  to  be  suspended  on  wires,  con- 
stituted "  decoration."  He  had  also  learned 
that  Japan  (as  was  then  the  opinion  of  the  criti- 
cal) had  spoken  the  last  word  on  decorative  art : 
he  provided  himself  with  some  of  the  worst 
specimens  of  it  in  the  shape  of  penny  fans  which 
caught  his  eye  in  an  advanced  oil-shop  near 
Great  Titchfield  Street.  Only  at  a  later  date 
did  he  learn  that  modern  Japan  is  degraded  by 
contact  with  civilisation,  by  hurry  and  the  de- 
sire to  multiply  cheap  effects.  He  understood, 
then,  why,  after  his  fans  had  been  nailed  on  the 
wall  over  his  washstand  for  some  weeks,  he  had 
begun  to  hate  them,  and  why  a  shattered  and 
chippy  Nankin  plate  which  St.  Andrew's  Street, 
Seven  Dials,  had  yielded  up  for  eighteenpence 
remained  always  delightful,  notwithstanding 
Mrs.  Wicksted's  frank  depreciation  of  it  as  ugly, 
and  of  its  central  subject  (a  tortuous  tree  trunk) 
as  not  likf.  any  tree  she  had  ever  seen.  "  It  isn't 
pictorial,  you  see:  it's  conventional,"  Stanton 
explained. 

At  the  Chippendales',  too,  he  learned  of  ways 
in  which  civilised  modernity  was  objectionable. 
It  was  objectionable,  the  sculptor  said,  to  use 
things  that  were  turned  out  by  the  gross,  each 
the  exact  counterpart  of  all  its  hundred  and 
forty-three  fellows;  when  each  might  have  its 
individuality,  each  might  bear  the  imprint  of  its 
maker's  hand — even  the  mark  of  his  defects. 

In  pursuance  of  this  principle,  the  brother  and 
sister,  when  they  had  found  themselves  alone 


234  BORLASE   &   SON 

in  the  world,  and  decided  to  set  up  housekeep- 
ing together,  had  furnished  all  their  needs  from 
second-hand  shops,  not  without  incredible  chaf- 
ferings:  for  Chippendale's  animus  against  the 
huckstership  of  trade  had  never  warped,  but 
indeed  had  rather  stiffened  his  sense  that  one 
must  meet  greed  with  stubbornness.  So  he 
would  pay  no  more  than  what  the  higgling  of 
the  market  might  allow,  for  what  he  purchased. 
Thus  their  chairs  were  of  old  oak  and  of  ma- 
hogany, dark  with  age,  and  ran  in  small  sets  or 
mere  pairs.  Their  table  was  a  treasure — heavy, 
massive  and  solid  on  its  turned  legs:  Will  had 
carried  it  home,  unashamed,  on  his  back,  from 
the  shop,  having  demanded  (and  obtained)  a 
reduction  of  its  price  in  consideration  of  this  la- 
bour, which  (he  pointed  out  to  the  amused 
broker)  saved  cartage.  Their  tableware  was  a 
joy  to  look  upon,  though  few  plates  or  dishes 
matched:  all  were  good  and  beautiful  china  or 
old  earthenware,  and  their  highly  miscellaneous 
tumblers,  many  of  them,  were  of  delightfully- 
cut  crystal:  some  had  remnants  of  surface-gild- 
ing— a  forgotten  beauty.  The  carpet  of  the 
chamber  which  served  them  for  dining  and 
sitting-room  was  an  admirable  square  of  rich 
pile.  Mary  had  sewn  it  together  in  many  labor- 
ious evenings,  from  a  roll  of  rare  Oriental  stair- 
carpet,  "  picked  up  "  by  herself  at  an  auction  in 
Leicester  Square.  A  huge  bureau,  with  a  glass- 
fronted  bookcase  of  many  oddly-shapen  panes, 
over  it,  occupied  nearly  all  the  space  between 
the  open  windows.  It  was  of  mahogany,  bright 


BORLASE   &   SON  235 

with  faithful  rubbing,  and  had  long  drawers  with 
brass  handles  of  a  forgotten  pattern ;  a  little  oval 
of  satin-wood  inlaying  embellished  the  centre  of 
the  sloping  lid,  which  hinged  down  for  writing, 
upon  two  slides  contrived  beneath  to  pull  out  for 
its  support.  The  fender  and  the  fire-irons  were 
an  equal  joy  to  look  upon,  and  brightly  pol- 
ished; while  for  over-mantel  they  had  an  enor- 
mous looking-glass  in  a  carved  oval  frame, 
whose  gilding  would  still  have  made  the  sort 
of  new  frame  which  enterprising  shopkeepers 
run  up  for  the  unwary  look  extremely  foolish. 

It  was  Mary's  part,  as  a  rule,  to  moderate  her 
brother's  excesses,  when  he  denounced  "  busi- 
ness "  as  at  present  conducted,  with  undis- 
criminating  largeness. 

"  It  is  very  well  for  you  to  say  that  trade  is  all 
trickery,"  Mary  had  said,  in  answer  to  some  re- 
mark of  Will's,  "  but  you  can  carry  your  idea 
too  far.  There  is  a  point  where  you  will  find 
that  you  are  railing  against  all  progress." 

"  Not  at  all.  I  am  railing  against  dishonest 
progress,"  he  protested. 

"  Rail  on,"  said  Dartring,  who  had  not  en- 
tered the  argument,  preferring  (as  he  generally 
did)  to  listen,  and  be  amused  in  his  taciturn  way 
by  the  intellectual  antics  of  these  enthusiasts. 

"  You've  to  remember,"  said  Mary,  "  that 
what  was  possible  when  England  contained 
fewer  people  than  London  does  now,  wouldn't 
work  at  the  present  day.  If  we  had  to  depend 
on  windmills  for  our  flour,  you  would  have  us 
starving  in  a  week." 


236  BORLASE   &   SON 

"Not  if  you  had  enough  windmills,"  said  her 
brother.  "  If  we  hadn't  introduced  steam- 
grinding,  we  should  have  built  enough  wind- 
mills." 

"  And  flour  would  have  stood  at  the  price  it 
fetched  a  hundred  years  ago,"  said  Mary. 

"  Precisely :  and  farmers  would  have  pros- 
pered instead  of  failing " 

"  While  there  wouldn't  have  been  enough 
food  to  feed  the  present  population." 

"  Well,  you  take  an  extreme  case,"  said  Chip- 
pendale, who  saw  that  he  had  been  led  into  a 
false  position.  "  But  that  wasn't  what  I  was 
speaking  of.  It  was  the  continual  trickery  and 
over-reaching  that  is  set  up  by  the  divorce  of 
commerce  from  manufacture.  Take  a  watch- 
maker, for  instance.  In  our  father's  time  a 
watchmaker  was  a  man  who  made  watches — and 
made  'em  well.  Look  at  this,  Stanton." 

He  took  out  a  fat  silver  watch,  its  case  smooth 
with  friction,  and  its  stout  glass  a  little  dulled 
by  wear. 

"  It  was  my  father's  watch,"  he  explained. 
"  Spring  covers  weren't  invented.  The  case 
jams  so  tight  that  it  hardly  needs  cleaning  once 
in  six  or  seven  years.  The  hands  are  *  set ' 
— when  they  want  altering,  which  isn't  often, 
unless  I  forget  to  wind  it — from  the  front :  you 
have  to  open  the  glass,  so.  Well,  the  man  that 
sold  my  father  that  watch  made  it  with  his  own 
hands.  Here's  his  name,  '  Thos.  Aley,  Knights- 
bridge.  No.  777.'  The  man  who  calls  himself 
a  watchmaker  nowadays  is  only  a  man  who  sells, 


BORLASE   &   SON  237 

and  can,  perhaps,  just  clean,  factory-made 
watches.  Consequently,  when  you  go  to  buy 
watches,  it  isn't  with  a  man  who  knows  every 
wheel  in  them  that  you  have  to  deal — a  man 
who  makes  and  loves  watches — but  a  huckster, 
who  buys  other  men's  work  to  sell  again  and 
make  a  profit  out  of  it;  and  who,  the  chances 
are,  will  sell  you  a  Swiss  watch  for  an  English 
one,  if  he  can,  even  if  he  knows  the  difference. 
A  man  was  prosecuted  for  that  the  other  day." 

"  Oh,  absurd !  "  said  Mary.  "  Of  course  the 
man  knows  where  the  goods  came  from ;  and  he 
isn't  necessarily  a  humbug  because  he  isn't  a 
craftsman." 

"  But  he  has  more  temptation  to  be  a  hum- 
bug," said  Chippendale. 

"  All  the  more  reason  for  him  to  be  treated 
fairly  until  you  know  he  is  a  humbug,"  Mary 
replied.  "  There  you  are  again ;  you  think  that 
people  need  to  be  swaddled :  you  would  deny  all 
moral  fibre  to  everyone.  If  there  is  temptation, 
it  does  a  man  good,  if  he  has  any  good  in  him, 
to  have  temptation  to  resist." 

"  And  what  about  the  maker,  what  about  the 
craftsman  ?  "  pursued  her  brother.  "  So  far  as 
machinery  leaves  him  room  to  be  anything  but 
a  machine  himself,  he  is  utterly  degraded  by 
your  commercial  system.  He  makes  watches 
by  the  hundred.  He  never  sees  them  used. 
You  deprive  him  of  the  joy  of  the  completed 
work.  He  never  sees  his  handiwork  bringing 
its  price,  and  being  used  and  valued  by  the  pur- 
chaser. He  is  deprived  of  all  pleasure  in  his 


238  BORLASE   &   SON 

work :  it  is  nothing  to  him  if  his  watches  go  well 
or  ill:  he  gets  his  wages.  Our  father's  watch- 
maker saw  his  handiwork  in  use:  it  came  back 
to  him  from  time  to  time,  to  be  cleaned,  and 
made  perfect  again,  as  it  left  his  hand.  A  man 
like  that  was  a  sort  of  artist." 

"  Well,  all  workmen  can't  be  artists,"  said 
Mary. 

"  They  can,  in  their  way :  and  they  are,  when 
they  get  a  chance,"  Chippendale  replied. 
"  Wasn't  a  potter  an  artist  ?  When  he  lifted  the 
clay  from  his  wheel  and  carried  it  to  the  furnace 
to  bake,  some  mark  that  his  thumb  made  on  the 
edge  was  made  as  permanent  as  the  completed 
work  itself.  I  should  like  to  see  you  show  me 
a  thumb-mark  on  one  of  your  papers  or  account 
books,  or  the  penholders  you  sell  by  the  hun- 
dred gross.  You'd  reject  them  for  being  ir- 
regular. You  know  you  would. 

"  And  what  is  the  consequence?  "  he  went  on. 
"  It  is  the  destruction  of  all  morality.  The 
manufacturer  exploits  the  worker:  the  worker 
exploits  the  apprentice,  or  exploits  his  own  chil- 
dren— '  half-timers.'  The  workman  lives  in  mis- 
ery, and  is  paid  the  minimum  of  what  he  will 
take  rather  than  starve.  He  works  because  he 
can't  live  without  working:  yet  he  is  indispen- 
sable to  his  master — just  as  indispensable  as  his 
master  to  him.  Why  should  one  get  all  the 
profit,  whatever  it  may  be,  while  the  other,  no 
matter  what  the  profit  is,  gets  only  what  will 
keep  him  from  starving  and  no  more?  " 

"  He  doesn't  get  any  more  because  he  hasn't 


BORLASE   &   SON  239 

the  intelligence  to  earn  more,"  Mary  replied. 
"  If  he  received  more  for  a  week's  work  than  he 
needs  for  a  week's  '  keep,'  he  would  remain  idle, 
or  worse,  the  next  week.  He  only  gets  the 
minimum  wage  because  he  will  only  give  the 
minimum  work." 

"  You  assume  that  he  will  only  give  that : 
Ruskin  is  always  railing  at  that  view  of  com- 
merce. Treat  every  man  as  if  he  would  rob 
you  if  he  dared,  and  every  man  zvill  rob  you  if 
he  dares.  Exploit  him,  and  he  will  exploit  you." 

"  Well,  it  pretty  often  happens  that  a  good 
master  is  exploited,"  Mary  admitted.  *'  Our 
place  is  an  example  of  that." 

Stanton's  eyes  widened.  "  I  don't  understand 
what  you  mean  by  that,  Miss  Chippendale,"  he 
said. 

"  I  mean,"  she  replied,  "  that  a  good  deal  of 
time  is  wasted  in  that  office  by  idling  and  talk- 
ing. Because  no  one  is  driven,  everyone  wastes 
time." 

"  But  the  work  is  done,"  Stanton  objected. 
"  Nothing  is  neglected ;  and,  as  Lucraft  says, 
'  you're  none  the  more  thought  of  for  doing  too 
much.' ' 

"  None  the  more  thought  of ! "  Mary  echoed 
scornfully.  "  Don't  you  see  that  it  isn't  what 
other  people  think  of  you  that  matters,  but  what 
you  think  of  yourself?  How  can  a  man  respect 
himself  who  takes  money  for  a  day's  work  and 
only  does  about  half  a  day's  work?  The  work 
out  there  could  all  be  done  by  a  couple  of  clerks, 
if  they  worked  hard  all  day,  instead  of  playing 
and  gossiping." 


240  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  And  some  of  the  '  gossip  '  isn't  very  im- 
proving, I  suspect,"  Chippendale  interjected. 

Stanton,  who  knew  what  was  meant,  red- 
dened. "  Still,"  he  said,  "  we  are  there.  You 
wouldn't  have  us  throw  up  our  situations,  say- 
ing that  there  isn't  enough  work  for  five  ?  " 

"  Well,  it's  a  question  whether,  in  strict  right, 
you  oughtn't  to,"  Mary  replied,  wrinkling  her 
brow  in  thought.  "  But  I  will  tell  you  what  you 
all  could  do.  You  could  occupy  the  time  by 
doing  the  work  better.  You  could  fill  it  up  by 
doing  everything  as  well  as  you  possibly  can. 
You  said,  the  other  day,  that  you  wished  you 
were  capable  of  artistic  work,  rather  than  the 
drudgery  of  clerking.  Well,  any  work — I  don't 
care  what  it  is — is  artistic  work,  if  one  does  it 
with  a  determination  to  do  it  as  well  as  it  pos- 
sibly can  be  done." 

"What!  Indexing  letter-books?  Writing 
out  invoices?  Copying  letters?  " 

"  Certainly.  You  write  a  hand  that  is  beauti- 
ful, at  its  best.  You  have  time  to  write  always 
your  best.  Even  copying  letters  in  the  press  can 
be  done  well  or  badly.  A  letter-book  that  is 
well  kept  isn't  a  beautiful  thing  perhaps :  it  isn't 
an  image  or  a  picture.  But  it  is  neat,  and  clean, 
and  handsome,  and  unsmuclged." 

"  Accidents — "  Stanton  began,  apologetically. 

"  Accidents  need  not  happen  when  there  is 
ample  time  to  be  careful.  To  do  work  as  well 
as  one  can,  makes  it  artistic  work.  It  makes  it 
pleasant.  You  are  always  discovering  new 
methods  of  perfection.  Another  thing  which 


BORLASE   &   SON  241 

you  might  do,  is  to  find  opportunities  for  learn- 
ing something  of  the  goods  that  we  sell.  Paper, 
for  instance,  is  a  most  fascinating  study:  there's 
a  great  deal  more  in  paper  than  many  people 
suppose.  Do  you  know  what  this  paper  is  called, 
for  instance?  " 

She  went  to  a  vast  portfolio  which  lay  on  a 
side  table  and  took  out  of  it  a  sheet  of  paper 
about  two  feet  by  three  feet  in  size.  Stanton 
went  over  with  her  and  held  it  in  his  hands. 

"  Drawing  paper,  isn't  it  ?  "  he  luminously 
suggested. 

"  You  have  great  powers  of  penetration ! 
There's  a  pretty  answer  for  a  man  who  is  writing 
in  account  books  about  paper  all  day  long !  It's 
a  hundred  and  two  pound  '  not '  colombier — a 
hand-made  drawing  paper  of  the  best  kind, 
thirty-four  inches  and  a  quarter  long,  twenty- 
three  inches  and  a  half  wide.  '  Not '  means  that 
the  surface  is  only  half-smoothed.  The  other 
sizes  are  demy,  medium,  royal,  super-royal,  ele- 
phant, imperial,  atlas,  double  elephant  and  an 
old-fashioned  size  called  antiquarian." 

"How  on  earth  do  you  know  all  that?" 
Stanton  inquired,  with  astonishment. 

"  I  learned  it  by  keeping  my  eyes  open." 

"  But  you  have  no  use  for  it  in  your  work." 

"  No ;  perhaps  not.  But  it  makes  my  work 
interesting  instead  of  its  being  dull.  It  would 
be  worth  your  while — much  more  so  than  mine, 
practically — and,  what  is  more,  it  would  do  away 
with  the  tedium  of  your  work,  if  you  took 
the  trouble  to  learn  the  technical  properties  of 

16 


242  BORLASE   &   SON 

what  you  invoice  and  enter-up.  You  would 
enjoy  what  you  do,  instead  of  hating  it,  if,  in- 
stead of  studying  how  to  get  through  it  with  as 
little  trouble  as  possible,  you  preferred  to  study 
how  well  it  could  be  done,  and  how  much  you 
could  learn  about  it.  It  is  the  only  honest  way  to 
work.  We  have  no  right  to  exploit  our  em- 
ployer, even  if  he  exploited  us." 

"  Oh,  he  doesn't,"  Stanton  admitted.  "  He 
isn't  a  nigger-driver.  Schneider  would  like  to 
be,  but  the  governor  isn't." 

"  No,  and  the  firm  doesn't  treat  the  clerks 
as  they  treat  it"  Mary  went  on.  "  Everyone  is 
paid  more  than  he  would  get,  if  the  cheapest 
labour  obtainable  were  employed,  as  it  is  in 
some  places." 

"  By  the  way,"  Chippendale  interposed,  tak- 
ing up  a  subject  which  Mary  had  some  time  be- 
fore announced  her  intention  of  probing, 
"  where  were  you  before  you  came  to  Mr. 
Douglas's,  Stanton?" 

Stanton  flushed.  "  In  a  draper's  shop  in 
South  Camberwell,"  he  said. 

"  Did  they  treat  you  as  well  there  as  they  do 
at  Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spender's?  "  Chippen- 
dale asked. 

"Well,"  said  Stanton,  "the  work  was  dif- 
ferent. The  hours  were  longer,  you  know.  The 
employes  lived  in." 

"  What  do  you  mean — they  lived  in  the 
shop?" 

"  The  girls  lived  over  the  shop.  The  men 
slept  in  another  house.  The  firm  provided  their 
food."  ' 


BORLASE   &   SON  243 

"  Good  food?  "  Mary  asked. 

Stanton  again  reddened.  He  remembered 
that  the  food  had  not  been  thought  by  Mr. 
Borlase  good  for  his  adoptive  son's  health." 

"  Not  very,"  he  replied. 

"  What  did  they  give  you  ?  " 

"  Bread  and  butter  for  breakfast,"  said  Stan- 
ton,  concealing  his  own  preferential  treatment: 
"  boiled  meat  and  pudding  for  dinner,  bread  and 
butter  for  tea." 

"Good?" 

Stanton  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  afraid  the  grub 
wasn't  very  grand,"  he  said. 

"And  the  sleeping  accommodation?  I've 
heard  dreadful  things  about  the  lodging  of  shop- 
assistants." 

"  The  rooms  were  rather  small,"  Stanton  said, 
"  and  rather  too  crowded." 

"  Were  the  assistants  healthy?  Did  they  like 
their  work?  " 

"  They  hated  it,"  Stanton  was  able  to  reply, 
with  a  vivid  remembrance  of  his  own  sensations. 
"  They  weren't  very  strong-looking,"  he  added. 

"  Not  enough  air,  too  much  gas,  no  exercise," 
Chippendale  commented,  stretching  a  muscular 
leg,  and  looking  at  his  sister.  "  Was  it  a  profit- 
able business?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  should  think  so.  Yes,  certainly. 
There  wasn't  a  great  percentage  of  profit  on 
individual  articles,  but  there  was  so  much  sold 
that  the  shop  must  have  brought  in  a  tidy  sum 
every  week." 

"And  the  assistants  were  sweated?"  Chip- 
pendale commented. 


244  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  No  worse  than  other  shops,"  Stanton  re- 
plied. Concealing,  as  he  felt  bound  in  honour, 
bound  by  his  guardian's  order  to  conceal,  his 
own  relation  to  the  Emporium,  he  nevertheless 
also  felt  that  this  relation  forbade  him  to  leave 
it  undefended. 

"  No  worse  than  others,"  Chippendale  com- 
mented, "  but  pretty  bad.  Is  that  why  you 
left?" 

"  No.  I  left  because —  I  left  to  get  experi- 
ence in  wholesale  business,"  he  explained. 
"  Perhaps  I —  "  He  stopped.  One  effect  of 
his  intercourse  with  the  Chippendales  had  been 
to  make  him  franker,  less  secretive,  less  ready 
to  hide  by  furtive  falsehood  anything  he  did  not 
wish,  or  felt  himself  unable,  to  reveal.  "  Per- 
haps," he  said  at  length,  with  a  moral  courage 
he  would  probably  not  have  been  capable  of 
some  weeks  earlier,  "  I  may  go  back  there  some 
day." 

"  Why,  do  you  like  it  better  than  Mr.  Doug- 
las's? "  Mary  asked  in  surprise. 

Embarrassed,  but  still  determined  to  be  truth- 
ful, Stanton  said :  "  No ;  I  didn't.  But  when  I 
go  back  I  shall  have  a  better  position.  There  is 
something  about  it  that  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
tell  anyone,"  he  concluded.  "  I  am  not  in  quite 
the  same  position  as  the  other  assistants.  If  I 
went  back  I  should  have  a  share  in  the  manage- 
ment, I  believe." 

Mary  looked  puzzled,  and  not  pleased.  "  And 
help  to  oppress  them  ?  "  she  asked. 

Stanton  reddened  afresh.  "  No  one  is  obliged 
to  stay  who  doesn't  want  to,"  he  said. 


BORLASE   &   SON  245 

"  Well,  if  you  are  not  free  to  talk  about  it,  you 
mustn't,"  Mary  said.  "  If  you  do  go  back  and 
do  share  in  the  management,  I  hope  you  will 
manage  it  more  fairly." 

"  Meantime,"  Stanton  said,  "  I  shall  certainly 
do  what  you  say — about  my  own  work,  I  mean. 
I  never  saw  it  in  just  that  light  before." 

"  Well,  it  is  honest  to  do  one's  best  for  one's 
master,  if  one  is  taking  wages,"  Mary  concluded 
sententiously ;  "  and  it  is  honest  to  treat  one's 
employes  fairly  if  one  pays  wages.  That's  the 
only  way  the  world  is  likely  to  move  forward. 
Where  employers  treat  their  workpeople  like 
beasts  of  burden,  and  workpeople  do  all  they 
can  to  deceive  and  cheat  their  masters,  there  is 
no  progress — only  retrogression.  A  man  can 
at  least  do  his  best,  whatever  his  position." 

Chippendale  elevated  his  brows  at  these  max- 
ims. "  '  Good  sentences,  and  well  pronounced/  ' 
he  quoted. 

"  They  would  be  better  if  well  followed," 
Mary  answered  him,  smiling. 


CHAPTER    XX 

NEW   WORK 

ONE  thing1  that  the  Chippendales  did  for  Stan- 
ton  was  to  impart  to  him  a  needed  increment  of 
self-respect.  Mary  required  very  little  time  to 
perceive  his  intrinsic  superiority  to  Peters  and 
Thurlow,  and  imparted  her  sense  of  it  to  Chip- 
pendale. "  He's  a  boy  of  a  very  different  type," 
she  said.  "  He  has  something  in  him." 

Stanton  justified  her  faith  in  him.  He  pro- 
pounded to  Peters,  but  without  ascribing  it  to 
her,  Miss  Chippendale's  theory  of  artistic  office 
work.  Mr.  Peters  rudely  replied,  "  Rats !  "  and 
repeated  Stanton's  views  to  Lucraft.  The  latter 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

Of  him,  and  of  his  superior  will,  Stanton  was 
in  much  awe.  He  knew  Lucraft's  distaste  for, 
the  lady  of  the  keys.  Consequently,  he  did  not 
reveal  his  own  ripening  regard  for  and  acquaint- 
ance with  her.  He  never,  indeed,  enjoyed  ex- 
hibiting sentiments  objectionable  to  other  peo- 
ple. Lucraft's  masterful  reprehension  of  all 
that  displeased  or  might  inconvenience  him,  was 
a  thing  which  all  the  clerks  dreaded :  he  had 
a  bitter  tongue,  and  withheld  no  comment  that 
could  be  wounding  to  those  who  opposed  him. 
It  was  a  personal  grievance  against  himself  that 


BORLASE   &   SON  247 

anyone  should  (as  he  termed  it)  crawl  into  fa- 
vour, by  undue  diligence,  or  even  by  doing 
work  too  well.  The  greater  pains  which  Stan- 
ton  began  to  take  displeased  him. 

Finding  that  he  had  not  time  to  copy  the  let- 
ters as  carefully  as  he  now  wished  to  do,  if  he 
left  them  all  until  the  half  hour  before  post- 
time,  Stanton  began,  after  two  or  three  days,  to 
collect  them  just  after  lunch,  when  he  usually 
had  an  interval  of  leisure,  Mr.  Schneider  being 
still  out,  to  talk  with  and  be  amused  by  Lucraft, 
or  join  in  general  conversation.  Lucraft  took 
no  notice  of  Stanton's  new  manoeuvre  for  a  day 
or  two;  but  presently  he  remarked  upon  it. 

The  office  staff  was  entirely  free,  Mr.  Doug- 
las having  gone  out  on  business,  and  the  book- 
keeper having  taken  advantage  of  this  to  enlarge 
his  own  absence.  Peters  and  Thurlow  were 
engaged,  under  the  lid  of  the  latter's  desk,  in  a 
game  of  draughts,  the  implements  of  which  had 
been  purchased,  some  weeks  before  Stanton's 
arrival,  by  joint  subscription.  Edmund  Douglas 
was  continuing  his  resumed  studies  in  the  art  of 
stenography  under  the  eye  of  Miss  Chippendale. 
Stanton  stood  alone  by  the  press,  carefully  plac- 
ing damp  macintosh  sheets  in  the  book,  over- 
laying them  with  the  thin  leaves,  and  placing  the 
letters  in  position.  Presently  Lucraft,  who 
found  himself  without  companionship,  strolled 
softly  up,  always  with  a  provident  eye  on  the 
green  baize  door  of  the  typewriting  office. 

"  Hallo !  "  he  said.    "  It  isn't  post-time,  is  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  replied  Stanton.     "  But  I've  nothing 


248  BORLASE  &   SON 

to  do,  so  I  thought  I  might  as  well  get  on  with 
the  letters  " 

"What  for?" 

"  Saves  time,  later." 

"  There's  always  plenty  of  time.  I  don't  see 
any  busting  hurry." 

"  Well,  it's  rather  a  rush  at  half-past  five," 
said  Stanton,  apologetically ;  "  and  they  are  apt 
to  get  smudged  and  put  in  crooked." 

"  Anyone  been  complaining?  " 

"  No." 

"  Then  why  won't '  good-enough  '  do  ?  " 

"  There's  no  harm,  that  I  can  see,  in  doing 
them  as  well  as  possible." 

"  Oh,  no.  On  the  contrary,  it's  an  advantage. 
It  will  get  you  in  favour  with  the  governor,  if 
he  sees  how  much  more  particular  you  are  about 
your  work  than  other  people.  I  should  take  the 
book  in  and  show  him,  if  I  were  you."  Lticraft 
threw  out  the  suggestion  with  a  sneer.  "  You 
can  show  him  how  much  better  it  looks  than 
Peters's  work." 

"  I'll  leave  that  for  you  to  do,"  Stanton  re- 
plied, nettled,  forgetting  his  usual  awe  of  Lu- 
craft. 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  a  crawler,"  said  the  latter. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  insinuate  that  I  am  ?  " 
Stanton  enquired. 

Lucraft  walked  nearer  to  him  with  an  evil 
face.  "  Look  here,"  he  said,  "  you've  come  to 
the  wrong  shop  if  you  think  you  can  round  on 
me.  We  want  no  sneaking  on  these  premises. 
If  you  think  you  can  crawl  into  the  governor's 


BORLASE  &   SON  249 

good  graces  by  setting  yourself  up  as  a  pattern 
to  your  betters,  you  make  a  mistake." 

He  had  raised  his  voice.  Peters  and  Thurlow 
had  stopped  in  their  game  and  were  listening, 
with  uneasy  looks.  Lucraft  was  much  feared 
by  his  associates. 

Stanton,  his  hand  nervously  unsteady,  was 
fumbling  on  with  his  work — very  red,  very  un- 
comfortable, very  indignant,  but  without  words. 
His  old  inability  to  "  stick  up  "  for  himself  trou- 
bled him.  Lucraft  was  a  controversialist  far 
beyond  his  strength. 

"  I  wonder  what  you  would  think,"  the  latter 
pursued  venomously,  "  if  you  had  welcomed  a 
new  man  into  your  office,  and  put  him  up  to  all 
the  ways  of  the  place,  he  taking  it  all  in  and  pre- 
tending to  be  a  friend,  and  then,  as  soon  as  he 
thought  he  knew  everything,  found  him  setting 
to  work  to  get  you  blamed,  or  have  your  work 
contrasted  with  his  own  ?  What  would  you  call 
him?  And  then  rounding  like  a  dog  that  bites 
the  hand  that  feeds  it?  Pouf!  I  don't  wonder 
you  turn  red.  I  should  think  you're  ashamed 
of  yourself." 

"  I'm  not,  then,"  said  Stanton,  under  his 
breath. 

"  What's  that  you  say,  you  crawler?  " 

"  I  say  I'm  not  red." 

"  You're  a  liar,  you  are !  Go  and  look  in  the 
glass." 

"  I  have  no  desire  to  look  in  the  glass." 

"  Oh  " — mimicking  Stanton's  tremulous  tone 
— "  you've  no  d-desire  to  l-look  in  the  glass, 


250  BORLASE  &  SON 

haven't  you?  I've  a  good  mind  to  ram  your 
nose  through  it.  Why,  I've  broken  a  man's  jaw 
for  rounding  on  me.  Who  are  you?  Why,  you 
didn't  know  an  oil-sheet  from  a  damper  when 
you  came  here " 

The  door  of  Miss  Chippendale's  room  opened 
as  he  spoke.  Without  the  pause  of  a  moment, 
Lucraft  changed  his  tone  and  went  on,  as  if  con- 
tinuing a  sentence,  "  so  that  you  see,  if  you 
take  care  to  have  all  the  under-rubbers  damped 
evenly  at  the  beginning,  and  put  the  book 
evenly  in  the  press,  you  won't  find  that  the  water 
squeezes  out  and  makes  the  ink  run." 

Just  here  Edmund  Douglas  passed  them. 
Looking  up,  with  a  feigned  start  of  surprise: 
"  Oh,  I  didn't  see  you,  Mr.  Edmund,"  Lucraft 
said.  "  I  have  just  been  suggesting  to  Stanton 
that  if  he  copies  part  of  the  letters  in  the  middle 
of  the  day  he'll  have  time  to  do  them  better." 

"  Were  you  ?  "  was  Edmund's  comment.  "  I 
thought  he'd  been  doing  so  all  the  week.  It's  a 
very  good  plan.  By  the  way,  I  wish  you'd  get 
last  month's  postage-book  balanced.  I  see  it 
hasn't  been  added  up  for  three  weeks  or  more." 

"  Hasn't  it,  really?  Oh,  I'm  sorry,"  replied 
Lucraft.  "  The  fact  is  that  I've  been  rather 
busy  with  the  sample  book :  Pinkerton  has  sent 
home  a  good  many  renewal-demands  lately." 

"Indeed?"  said  Edmund  again.  "I  hadn't 
noticed  that  fact  either.  We'll  look  into  it  pres- 
ently, together.  But,  in  the  meantime,  you 
might  go  to  the  bank,  as  Mr.  Schneider  hasn't 
got  back.  He  made  up  the  paying-in  slips  this 


BORLASE  &   SON  251 

morning.  I  fancy  Stanton  can  manage  the  let- 
ters alone." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Lucraft ;  "  I  was  only  help- 
ing him  as  he  asked  me  to." 

Stanton  did  not  contradict  him.  Indeed,  at 
no  stage  of  his  life  at  Douglas's  would  he  have 
done  so.  But  as  the  time  went  on,  he  developed 
a  more  independent  spirit,  and  lost  much  of  his 
fear  of  Lucraft.  The  latter,  who  was  not  at  all 
desirous  of  keeping  up  a  feud  which  might  give 
him  enemies  where  he  needed  friends — for  Ed- 
mund Douglas  had  begun  to  see  through  his 
speciousness  of  late,  and  was  much  less  inclined 
than  before  to  confide  in  Lucraft — resumed 
most  of  his  old  manner  towards  Stanton  when 
they  next  came  into  contact.  To  be  sulky,  in- 
deed, was  not  in  his  temper,  which  was  purely 
selfish,  and  was  rarely  allowed  by  him  to  stand  in 
the  way  of  his  own  interests.  But,  scenting  dan- 
ger in  Stanton's  new  diligence,  which,  he  per- 
ceived, might  easily  bring  the  latter  into  too 
much  favour,  he  talked  less  to  him,  and  treated 
him  with  less  confidence  than  he  had  before  been 
inclined  to  show.  He  inwardly  despised  all  his 
colleagues — Peters  and  Thurlow  for  their  stu- 
pidity and  dullness,  Stanton  for  being  timid  and 
unformed.  But,  as  I  have  said,  he  had  no  in- 
tention of  isolating  himself.  There  was  safety 
in  numbers,  and  Edmund  Douglas's  attitude 
already  caused  him  uneasiness. 

Stanton  meanwhile  employed  leisure  time  in 
the  office,  no  longer  occupied  by  playing  with 
Lucraft,  in  cultivating  every  opportunity  for  the 


2$2  BORLASE  &   SON 

acquisition  of  technical  knowledge.  The  head 
warehouseman,  Pym,  was  an  old  paper-maker, 
overflowing  with  the  lore  of  the  process.  As 
soon  as  he  found  Stanton  interested  in  this 
knowledge,  Pym  became  garrulously  instruc- 
tive. There  is  no  surer  way  of  acquiring  a 
craftsman's  regard,  and  of  making  him  interest- 
ing, than  to  set  him  on  to  talk  of  his  own  work. 
Few  men  fail  to  respond  to  such  a  stimulus,  and 
before  long  Stanton  took  on  the  habit  of  spend- 
ing with  the  warehouseman  every  minute  he 
could  spare,  examining  the  various  kinds  of 
paper  which  Pym  handled,  and  being  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  of  wood-pulp,  rope,  manila, 
esparto,  straw  and  other  unexpected  constitu- 
ents of  paper,  its  sizes  from  pott  to  double- 
elephant,  and  what  distinctions  of  "  coarse  "  and 
"fine,"  "  laid  "  and  "  wove  "  differentiate  it.  He 
learned  what  papers  came  from  abroad  and  what 
greatly  superior  "  printings,"  "  writings," 
"  royal  hands  "  and  "  browns  "  were  made  in 
different  parts  of  England  and  Scotland,  picked 
up  some  skill  in  estimating  their  weights  and  de- 
tecting their  qualities,  and,  by  observing  the 
peculiarities  of  the  firms  whom  Douglas,  Wil- 
kinson &  Spender  supplied,  learned  to  what  uses 
various  kinds  of  paper  are  put. 

Outside  the  office  he  saw  more  and  more  of 
the  Chippendales,  who  liked  him,  and  liked  the 
influence  which  they  perceived  themselves  to 
exert  upon  him.  He  confided  to  William  Chip- 
pendale a  certain  amount  of  his  awe  of  Lucraf t : 
no  young  man  in  his  position  would  have  owned 


BORLASE  &   SON  253 

to  all  of  it.  The  sculptor  did  not  laugh  at  him. 
Neither  did  he  call  upon  Stanton  (as  Wicksted 
constantly  did)  for  a  more  forcible  courage  than 
he  possessed.  He  despised  Lucraft  as  a  bully 
and  a  knave,  and  was  in  reality  largely  the 
author  of  Stanton's  growing  hatred  of  him — a 
hatred  which  with  difficulty  survived  Lucraft's 
engaging  manners,  his  ordinarily  irrefragable 
good  humour.  For  the  latter,  when,  after  one 
or  two  attempts,  he  found  that  he  could  neither 
bully  nor  cajole  Stanton  back  into  the  first  lax 
ways,  really  began  to  respect  this  unforeseen 
and  growing  manliness.  As  the  months  passed 
on,  his  unconscious  esteem  for  Stanton  con- 
veyed itself,  as  by  a  sort  of  infection,  to  Peters 
and  Thurlow.  These  two  perceived  that  Stan- 
ton  was  better  educated,  better  informed  than 
themselves:  Lucraft's  ascendancy  was  so  re- 
markable that  they  did  not  think  of  comparing 
Stanton  with  him. 

The  latter  was  far  from  seeking  to  obtrude 
his  acquisitions  upon  his  superiors.  Edmund, 
indeed,  once  or  twice  embarrassed  Stanton  by 
discovering  him  in  the  warehouse,  deep  in  tech- 
nical research  with  Pym.  Stanton,  blushing, 
went  away.  Mr.  Schneider,  observant  of  his 
absences,  developed  a  habit  of  sending  for,  and 
one  day  rebuked  him.  Edmund  was  at  his  desk, 
and  presently  came  up,  and  heard  the  end  of  the 
conversation.  Stanton  had  been  dismissed  on 
an  unnecessary  errand. 

When  he  was  gone,  young  Douglas  spoke  of 
some  other  matter  to  Schneider.  The  latter, 


254  BORLASE  &   SON 

nervous  as  usual,  reverted  to  the  incident  just 
closed. 

"  Der  boy  is  too  mooch  in  cler  paper-room 
playing,"  he  remarked.  "  He  waste  an  hour 
dere  efery  afternoon,  Mister  Etmundt." 

"  Did  you  need  him?  "  Douglas  asked. 

"  I  wanted  som'  bill  stamps  from  der  post- 
office  bringing,"  said  the  book-keeper  uneasily, 
aware  that  his  errand  for  Stanton  had  been,  in 
reality,  factitious.  "  Som'  two  shilling  stamp, 
for  der  draft  on  Walker." 

"  Why,  I  thought  we  had  a  full  stock  of  bill 
stamps,"  Edmund  commented.  "  I  don't  want 
to  meddle,"  he  went  on,  "  but  from  what  I  have 
seen  of  him  downstairs,  I  don't  think  he  is  wast- 
ing his  time.  Anyway,  there  is  not  very  much 
for  him  to  do  in  the  afternoon,  from  three  to 
four,  and  he  would  only  be  idling  about  if  he 
were  up  here.  I  think  we  might  give  him  the 
job  of  keeping  the  stock  book,  Mr.  Schneider. 
Pym  isn't  much  of  an  arithmetician,  and  as 
Stanton  seems  to  have  a  taste  for  the  warehouse, 
he  might  as  well  do  it.  What  do  you  think  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  replied  the  book-keeper,  who  was  al- 
ways ready  to  grumble,  regarding  that  exercise 
as  a  vindication  of  his  own  importance,  "  it  iss 
very  true  dot  der  stogk  pook  is  made  fery  badt. 
Vhen  I  make  up  der  journal,  vot  no  one 
oonderstandt,  I  haff  endless  off  trooble  mit  der 
invoices-checking." 

"  Well,  then,  I  think  I  can  see  ways  of  help- 
ing you  with  it,"  Edmund  replied.  "  We'll  take 
it  out  of  Pym's  hands — he  has  too  much  to  do 


BORLASE  &   SON  255 

now — and  let  Stanton  try  what  he  can  make  of 
it.  I'm  very  glad,  Mr.  Schneider,"  he  concluded 
diplomatically,  "  that  you  mentioned  the  matter. 
It  is  important  that  you  should  have  all  the  as- 
sistance possible." 

Mr.  Schneider,  thus  appeased,  beamed  af- 
fably. Edmund,  with  his  quick  eye  and  quiet 
faculty  of  observation,  had  used  to  advantage 
the  opportunities  which  his  position  gave  him 
for  improving  office  arrangements.  Without  ex- 
citing animosity,  he  had  contrived  to  make  him- 
self a  power  in  the  establishment. 

As  well  as  raw  material,  the  house  of  Douglas, 
Wilkinson  &  Spender  dealt  in  printed  matter 
of  certain  sorts — atlases,  gazetteers  and  other 
books  of  reference  not  handled  by  the  ordinary 
kind  of  publishers.  Stanton,  in  the  course  of 
his  new  duties,  which  he  very  cheerfully  em- 
braced, learned  something  of  printing.  The 
firm  did  not  possess  a  typographical  plant,  and 
the  compilation  of  the  books  it  sold  was  done 
outside.  But  in  a  well-lighted  corner  of  the 
warehouse  a  middle-aged  man,  whose  power- 
fully lensed  spectacles  made  his  eyes  look  curi- 
ously fat,  corrected  proofs  submitted  by  the 
printers.  With  him,  Stanton  often  foregath- 
ered, and  found  him,  like  all  "  readers," 
strangely  intelligent,  accurate  and  well-in- 
formed. He  learned  here  something  of  how 
books  are  printed  and  bound,  and  one  day  ob- 
taining a  couple  of  hours'  leave,  accompanied 
the  "  reader  "  to  the  printing  office  from  which 
the  latter  had  come  to  Mr.  Douglas,  and  was 


256  BORLASE  &   SON 

shown   these  processes  in  practical  operation. 

Some  months  after  he  had  been  entrusted 
with  the  stock  book,  in  his  keeping  of  which 
even  Mr.  Schneider  found  nothing  to  complain 
of,  Stanton's  researches  came  suddenly  under 
the  observation  of  his  employer. 

Mr.  Douglas  occupied  a  large  room  on  the 
first  floor — a  room  rather  characteristic  of  him 
in  its  furnishing.  He  had  a  utilitarian  abhor- 
rence of  anything  not  absolutely  essential.  The 
walls  were  papered  with  a  perfectly  plain,  pat- 
ternless  green.  He  sat  at  a  cylinder-topped 
mahogany  desk,  with  a  few  labelled  pigeon 
holes.  On  the  leather-covered  writing-surface, 
adjusted  to  the  usual  slope — he  could  never 
write  on  anything  except  at  this  angle — lay  a 
half-quire  of  blotting-paper.  Beside  it,  on  the 
level,  were  a  small  ink-bottle,  and  a  pen  tray, 
containing  a  single  pen,  with  which,  in  his  small, 
cramped  writing,  legible  as  any  print,  he  wrote 
such  matters  as  required  his  own  pen ;  beside  his 
chair  stood  a  small  table  for  Miss  Chippendale, 
at  which,  during  fixed  hours  every  day — for  no 
clock  was  ever  more  regular  in  its  habits  than 
Mr.  Douglas — she  took  down  in  shorthand  such 
letters  as  he  chose  to  dictate.  The  rooms,  with 
the  exception  of  a  couple  of  chairs  for  callers — 
who  were  received  only  at  stated  hours — was 
otherwise  almost  ascetically  empty.  The  kamp- 
tuliconed  floor  had  a  square  Wilton  carpet  in 
the  middle  and  there  was  an  office  folding  wash- 
stand  behind  a  curtain  in  one  corner,  where  also 
were  a  few  coat-hooks  and  an  umbrella  stand. 


BORLASE  &   SON  257 

Even  the  usual  array  of  india-rubber  stamps 
was  absent,  Mr.  Douglas  having  a  curious  preju- 
dice against  these  implements. 

Here,  one  Saturday  morning,  Stanton,  in  the 
absence  of  Lucraft,  whose  business  it  properly 
was,  received  some  instructions  from  Mr.  Doug- 
las on  the  subject  of  a  new  gazetteer,  just  then 
on  the  point  of  being  sent  to  press. 

He  had  been  sent  for  a  sheet  of  the  paper 
intended  to  be  employed  for  this.  Mr.  Douglas 
held  the  sample  to  the  light,  examined  its  sur- 
face and  tore  off  a  corner  in  a  peculiar  manner, 
so  as  to  expose  a  jagged  edge. 

"  Bring  me  a  glass  of  water,  please,"  he  said. 

Stanton  obeyed.  Mr.  Douglas  dipped  the 
fragment  in  it  for  an  instant,  and  examined  the 
surface. 

"  Yes,  I  think  this  will  do,"  he  decided.  "  But 
I  must  know  the  weight.  Will  you  get  Pym 
to  put  a  sheet  on  the  scale?  " 

"  Pym  is  out,  sir,"  Stanton  replied.  "  But  I 
put  it  on  the  scale  myself.  It  is  " — he  men- 
tioned the  weight — "  so  many  pounds  perfect." 

Mr.  Douglas  looked  at  him  with  some  in- 
terest. "Why  did  you  think  of  doing  that?" 
he  inquired. 

"  I  expected  that  you  would  want  to  know, 
sir." 

"  H'm.  That  was  rather  thoughtful  of  you. 
But  you  said  'perfect'?  Do  you  understand 
what  that  means  ?  " 

'  Yes,    sir :    the   paper-maker's   scale   in   the 
warehouse  shows  it.    It's  a  quire  and  a  half  over 
the  mill  ream." 
17 


258  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Who  told  you  that?     It's  quite  right." 

"  Pym,  sir."  Stanton  blushed  under  this  in- 
terrogation. 

Mr.  Douglas  concluded  his  instructions,  but 
did  not  forget  the  incident.  A  week  or  two  later 
a  rearrangement  of  certain  work  became  neces- 
sary, and  Stanton  was  preferred  to  a  position 
superior  to  that  of  either  Peters  or  Thurlow, 
and,  indeed,  quite  equal  to  Lucraft's.  Peters, 
to  his  intense  disgust,  had  the  stock  book  given 
him  to  keep,  and  was,  in  addition,  called  upon 
to  attend  to  the  letter-book.  A  deferential  hint 
to  Mr.  Edmund  that  an  office  boy  would  now 
be  desirable,  to  take  up  Stanton's  former  duties, 
received  an  inhospitable  reception.  "  I  think 
you'll  be  able  to  find  time,"  said  Edmund,  "  if 
you  adopt  Stanton's  plan  of  dividing  the  work 
into  two  parts.  There  is  a  slack  hour  after  two, 
if  you  get  back  punctually  from  your  lunch." 

Stanton's  superiority  in  intelligence  to  both 
of  the  colleagues  he  had  overpassed  was  so  fully 
accepted  that  neither  of  these  found  his  prefer- 
ment extraordinary. 

It  was  not  for  want  of  having  their  superses- 
sion pointed  out  to  them  that  they  submitted  to 
it,  unprotesting.  Mr.  Schneider  kindly  saw  to 
that.  Especially  he  did  his  best  to  sow  jeal- 
ousy when,  as  he  had  in  reality  anticipated,  he 
was  bidden  to  increase  Stanton's  wages  on  the 
pay  sheet.  Mr.  Douglas  never  increased  a 
clerk's  responsibility  without  thus  marking  his 
sense  of  the  merit  which  had  warranted  the  step. 

"  It  iss  somet'ing  what  hass  nefer  been  hearedi 


BORLASE   &   SON  259 

off,"  Schneider  remarked  to  the  trio,  after  Stan- 
ton  had  left  on  the  first  Saturday  after  this 
operation.  "  Eferbotty  geds  a  rise  from  time 
to  time,  as  regarts  dat  is  goncernt.  But  dooble ! 
Vhen  you  tink  Mr.  Douglas  going  to  dooble 
your  screw,  Mr.  T'urlow?  " 

"  I  dono,"  replied  the  latter,  through  his  ir- 
regular teeth.  "  Not  much  chance,  seemingly." 

Mr.  Schneider  sniffed.  "  Of  coorse,  if  you 
like  it,  shentlemen,"  he  commented,  "  dat  iss  all 
right.  Finish.  It  doand  affect  me.  I  am  paid, 
ass  you  know,  in  a  differend  manner."  (Schnei- 
der was  fond  of  adumbrating  for  himself,  by 
such  hints  as  this,  a  sort  of  secret  partnership. 
He  drew  his  large  pay  at  irregular  intervals,  oc- 
casionally even  drawing  himself  a  three  months' 
bill  on  the  firm — a  method  of  payment  which 
his  position  as  cashier  enabled  him  to  adopt. 
These  bills  he  would  ostentatiously  exhibit  with 
many  a  veiled  hint,  in  moments  of  exhilaration.) 
"  Bud,"  he  continued,  "  id  seems  to  me  dat 
someone  mighd  make  rebresendations  to  der 
gofernor,  when  he  make  fish  from  one  und  fowl 
from  der  oder,  ass  der  prophet  say." 

This  magnanimous  hint  was  thrown  away 
upon  his  hearers :  all  the  more  so  as  there  was 
no  earthly  ground  for  anyone  to  complain.  Al- 
though he  was  placed  over  his  fellows,  Stanton's 
augmented  salary  did  not  as  yet  rival  that  of 
the  older  men,  which  had  grown  by  steady  ac- 
cretion at  several  Christmases. 

He  was,  however,  greatly  delighted  with  it. 
Indulging  himself  in  no  luxuries  beyond  a  more 


2<5o  BORLASE   &   SON 

frequent  Saturday  afternoon's  boating — an  ex- 
ercise to  which  Chippendale  had  introduced  him 
during  the  summer — he  was  able,  by  degrees, 
to  replace  some  of  his  original  capital  of  twenty 
pounds.  A  further  increase  of  five  shillings  a 
week  at  Christmas  accelerated  this  process.  Be- 
fore the  year  which  Mr.  Borlase  had  named  had 
elapsed,  the  money  was  complete,  and  Stanton 
had  bought  himself  a  needed  suit  of  clothes. 

"  I'm  glad  he's  become  a  little  less  funereal  in 
his  costume,"  Chippendale  remarked  to  Mary 
after  Stanton's  first  visit  to  them  in  his  new  garb 
— of  which  his  choice  had,  in  reality,  been  rather 
influenced  by  the  tastes  of  the  artistic  com- 
munity of  which  he  had  by  degrees  become  a 
sort  of  visiting  member. 

"  It  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  he  is  im- 
proved," Mary  replied.  "  You'll  make  a  man 
of  him  yet,  Will." 

"  Yes.  He's  got  a  lot  more  backbone  than 
he  used  to  have,"  Chippendale  replied.  "  I'm 
glad  he  didn't  remain  under  that  beast  Lucraft's 
thumb." 


CHAPTER  XXI 
STANTON'S  RETURN 

STANTON  grew  nearly  an  inch  in  height  during 
that  first  year  at  Douglas,  Wilkinson  &  Spen- 
der's, and  gained  a  good  deal  in  weight  and 
muscularity.  The  river  did  wonders  for  him, 
and  as  his  physical  strength  increased,  his  moral 
courage  developed  gradually  with  it — no  rare 
phenomenon.  The  power  he  had  developed  of 
taking  his  own  part  against  the  world  would 
have  pleased  Mr.  Borlase  greatly — would,  in- 
deed, have  pleased  that  philanthropist  a  good 
deal  more  than  some  of  the  ethical  doctrines 
which  his  ward  imbibed,  or  thought  out  for  him- 
self, at  the  same  time. 

But  of  this  there  seemed  to  Stanton  little  dan- 
ger. With  all  his  growth,  moral  and  physical, 
one  obsession  had  ridden  him  too  heavily,  ever 
since  the  point  at  which  memory  began,  to  be 
easily  weakened.  Behind  all  his  aspirations,  be- 
hind all  his  hopes  of  future  advancement  in  life, 
behind  his  pleasure,  now  somewhat  degenerated, 
in  the  prospect  of  returning  in  April  to  what 
'had,  after  all,  been  the  home  of  all  his  life,  the 
immense  figure  of  Mr.  Borlase  sombrely 
brooded,  waiting  for  him.  He  had  always  been 
implicitly  bullied  by  Mr.  Borlase.  Admonition, 
exhortation,  censure,  had  been  his  daily  lot.  He 


262  BORLASE   &   SON 

'had  not  often  been  found,  as  Mr.  Borlase 
phrased  it,  "  satisfactory."  What  reception 
would  he  meet  with  now  ?  Would  he  now  be  sat- 
isfactory? Would  the  old  place  be,  after  all,  so 
desirable  as  he  liad  promised  himself  that  it 
should  be?  Would  he  be  allowed  liberty,  time 
for  the  one  outdoor  sport  he  had  come  to  love, 
time  for  intercourse  with  the  friends  he  had 
made?  Stanton  wondered.  Mr.  Borlase  had 
complained  of  him  that  he  never  seemed  to  wish 
for  anything  of  his  own  accord.  Now  that  he 
had  certain  very  ardent  wishes,  certain  tastes 
that  were  important  to  his  happiness,  would  his 
desires  be  regarded,  they  also,  as  a  mark  of 
improvement?  Would  they  be  "  satisfactory?  " 

And  what  of  the  shop  itself?  To  Stanton  it 
seemed  so  long  since  he  had  entered  it,  that  he 
could  not  always  convince  himself  that  he  re- 
membered his  three  months  of  working  life 
there  very  accurately.  Possibly  he  had  exag- 
gerated its  miseries.  He  had  been  a  pitiful  sort  of 
fool  then,  he  reflected ;  it  was  not  very  surpris- 
ing that  Mr.  Borlase  had  found  fault  with  him. 
What,  after  all,  had  the  place  been  like?  The 
very  incidents  of  his  work  were  but  dimly  re- 
membered, and  Wicksted,  who  liked  to  forget 
all  about  the  Emporium  as  soon  as  he  con- 
veniently could  after  leaving  it,  had  not,  for  cer- 
tain, refreshed  Stanton's  memory. 

As  the  time  drew  nearer  for  his  return  to 
South  Camberwell,  Stanton,  who  at  first  had 
longed  for  its  arrival  with  an  almost  cat-like  in- 
habitiveness,  was  sensible  of  a  diminution  in  his 


BORLASE   &   SON  263 

ardour.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  say  of  him  that 
the  easier  circumstances  in  which  he  found  him- 
self, now  that  Mr.  Borlase's  money  was  made 
up  and  safely  banked  in  the  Post  Office,  deter- 
mined this  change.  But,  certainly,  his  need  was 
less  urgent,  and  we  may  set  against  the  influence 
of  this,  the  anticipation  of  a  certain  triumph, 
which  he  began  to  foretaste  when  he  first  found 
income  exceeding  expenditure;  it  would  be 
pleasant  enough,  he  then  reflected,  to  walk  into 
the  shop  (perhaps  in  a  new  suit  of  clothes)  punc- 
tually on  the  day  appointed,  and  say  to  Mr.  Bor- 
lase :  "  I  have  come  back.  Here  are  your  twenty 
pounds.  What  now?  " 

During  the  month  of  March,  this  year,  the  im- 
pulse came  to  Stanton  to  take  a  walk  in 
South  Camberwell  occasionally,  and  covertly 
look  at  the  shop:  he  had  developed  a  taste 
for  long  walks,  with  other  strenuous  indul- 
gences. He  did  not  care  to  loiter  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood: Mr.  Borlase  must  not  observe  him 
hanging  about.  But  on  Thursday  evening 
— the  night  of  early  closing — Mr.  Borlase  was  in 
the  habit,  either  of  staying  indoors  altogether, 
mortifying  a  taste  for  literature  with  the  columns 
of  the  local  Mercury,  or  else  of  going  entirely 
away,  to  enjoy  "himself  elsewhere. 

Accordingly,  on  one  or  two  Thursdays  when 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wicksted  had  not  arranged  to 
visit  him,  Stanton  walked  rapidly  through  Peck- 
ham  Lane,  to  glance  at  the  still  decorated 
and  illuminated  windows,  and  up  at  the  sombre 
warehouse  which  abutted  upon  the  shop  on  the 


264  BORLASE   &   SON 

Camera  Street  side,  one  storey  lower  than  the 
front  building.  Afterwards,  he  would  stroll  at 
more  leisure  through  Denmark  Street,  where 
the  dirty-windowed  house  stood  that  was  dedi- 
cated to  the  lodging  of  Mr.  Borlase's  young 
men.  The  neighbourhood  in  time,  came  to  have 
almost  a  fascination  for  him,  and  once  he  act- 
ually braved  all  contingencies  to  give  himself 
the  opportunity  of  seeing  what  the  Emporium 
looked  like  when  it  was  open  and  busy. 

But  it  was  on  none  of  these  occasions  that  the 
ironic  fates  at  length  ingeniously  precipitated 
his  momentous  recrossing  of  the  threshold. 
Stanton's  lodging,  it  may  be  remembered,  was 
south  of  the  Thames,  so  that  he  slept  every 
night  within  a  couple  of  miles  distance,  as  the 
crow  flies,  of  his  guardian.  One  fine  evening — 
the  evening,  to  be  precise,  of  Lady  Day — Stan- 
ton  had  been  attracted  by  the  advertisement  of  a 
South  London  playhouse,  one  of  the  pioneers 
of  the  Suburban  Theatre  movement.  Peters, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  Tiad  been  the  unconscious 
instrument  of  the  Fates;  he  had  pointed  out  the 
determining  announcement,  and  suggested  that 
they  should  visit  the  home  of  Thespis  (he  did  not 
apply  that  term  to  it)  in  company.  It  is  an 
additional  irony,  so  jocose  is  destiny,  that  the 
dramatic  composition  which  tempted  them  was 
a  comic  play. 

Nearly  at  the  end  of  the  third  (and  last)  Act 
— all  comic  plays  appear  to  be  in  three  Acts — 
the  audience  was  disturbed  several  times  by  the 
noise  of  some  heavy  vehicle  rapidly  driven  past, 


BORLASE   &   SON  265 

to  the  accompaniment  of  raucous  shouts  and 
a  loud  popular  commotion.  As  the  two  young 
men  emerged  from  the  pit-door  another  of  these 
disturbances  occurred — a  fire-engine  drove  past 
in  full  shout.  "  Ey !  Ey !  Ey !  Ey !  "  cried  the 
warning  firemen,  clinging  to  the  side  straps,  in 
their  brass  helmets.  Stanton  and  Peters,  amused 
and  in  good  spirits,  saw  nothing  better  to  do 
than  to  follow  the  engine  at  their  best  pace, 
along  with  other  ardent  youths. 

Turning  up  Rye  Lane,  it  led  them  to  a  district 
familiar  enough  to  Stanton;  and  now  the  sky 
before  them  was  red  with  reflected  fire,  and  the 
hurrying  crowd  began  to  exchange  conjectures 
and  receive  rumours.  It  was  a  good  fire,  they 
assured  each  other ! 

Where  Peckham  Lane  made  a  sharp  corner, 
near  the  Rye,  rumour  solidified  into  definite 
statement.  The  fire  was  at  Borlase  &  Com- 
pany's. 

Already  the  road  was  awash  with  water  from 
a  standpipe,  and  the  rapid  grunt,  grunt  of  q, 
steam-pumping  engine  told  the  lads  that  the 
hose  was  at  work.  A  dense  crowd,  kept  at  bay 
by  the  admirable  cordon  of  the  quick  police, 
shouted  and  laughed,  wet-footed.  As  well  as 
Stanton  could  see,  above  the  multitudinous 
bowler  hats  before  him,  the  fire  seemed  to  be 
raging  in  the  upper  part  of  the  building  only — 
fiercer  at  the  two  sides  than  in  the  middle. 
Dense  smoke  was  pouring  from  the  first  floor 
windows;  higher,  the  smoke  was  mingled  with 
innumerable  flakes  of  bright  yellow  incandes- 


266  BORLASE   &   SON 

cence,  like  crumpled  gold-leaves,  wavering  up- 
wards towards  the  sky.  Nothing  could  be  seen 
of  the  water  that  was  being  urged  through  the 
hose;  but  a  constant  hiss,  and  clouds  of  steam  on 
the  street  level,  indicated  that  the  firemen  were 
at  work. 

The  police  began  to  enlarge  the  space  kept 
vacant  before  the  building.  "  Look  out,"  cried 
one  of  them.  "  The  walls  are  coming  down." 

The  crowd,  easily  frightened,  as  any  crowd  is, 
broke  and  stumbled  backwards.  Stanton — 
separated  from  Peters — found  his  opportunity 
and  stood  his  ground,  thridding  the  startled 
mob.  A  sudden  fear,  a  sudden  sense  of  respon- 
sibility attacked  him. 

"Is  Mr.  Borlase  there?"  he  asked,  flinging 
the  question  all  round  him.  Peters,  a  few  yards 
off,  heard  and  wondered  at  it. 

"  'Ow  do  I  know?  "  a  man  answered,  laugh- 
ing. "  'Ere  git  ert  er  the  waiy."  But  Stanton 
pressed  farther  forward. 

"Where's  the  fire-escape?"  Stanton  de- 
manded of  some  one. 

"  There  ain't  no  fire-escape.  The  girls  is  all 
out,"  said  a  draggle-hatted  woman. 

He  gave  a  sigh  of  relieved  anxiety.  By  this 
time  he  had  reached  the  row  of  policemen.  The 
salvage-men  were  carrying  out  bales  of  cloth 
and  calico.  Apparently,  the  threat  of  the  police 
respecting  the  walls  had  been  a  mere  ruse  to 
secure  more  space  for  the  firemen  to  work  in. 
Stanton  tried  to  pass  the  cordon,  but  a  police- 
man put  out  an  inflexible  elbow  and  stopped 


BORLASE   &   SON  267 

him.  "  Let  me  come  through,"  he  said,  "  I  am 
Stanton  Borlase.  Is  Mr.  Borlase  here?" 

A  police-sergeant  heard  him,  and  drawing 
one  of  his  men  aside,  pulled  Stanton  through 
the  rank.  "  No,  sir,"  he  said.  "  He  was  not 
in  the  house;  and  we  understand  that  he  has 
gone  to  town." 

"  Where  are  the  assistants  ?  "  asked  Stanton. 
"Were  they  in  bed?" 

"  Yes.  They  got  out  in  their  night-clothes, 
most  of  them,"  said  the  sergeant.  "  We  put 
them  into  the  public-house  at  the  corner." 

"  Has  the  safe  been  got  out,  then?  "  Stanton 
inquired. 

"  Too  heavy,"  said  the  sergeant,  shaking  his 
head.  "  But  the  fire  is  mostly  up  stairs.  The 
safe  won't  hurt.  The  men  are  getting  out  as 
much  stock  as  they  can  from  behind.  The  ware- 
house is  bound  to  catch." 

A  disturbance  among  the  crowd  at  the  end  of 
the  line,  now  called  the  sergeant  away.  The 
row  of  police  had  been  momentarily  broken,  and 
three  or  four  roughs  were  being  hustled  out  of 
the  open  space.  Stanton  watched  this  process 
inattentively.  The  astonished  Peters,  who  had 
observed  his  colloquy  with  the  police,  tried  in 
vain  to  reach  him,  and  share  the  advantages  of 
his  position.  But  Stanton,  it  seemed,  had  for- 
gotten all  about  his  companion.  His  mind,  cool 
and  thoughtful,  was  concentrated  on  the  results 
of  this  fire.  His  anxiety  about  the  safe  marked 
his  appreciation  of  one  of  them.  The  amount 
of  money — at  all  events  the  quantity  of  destruct- 


268  BORLASE   &   SON 

ible  bank-notes,  postal  orders  and  stamps — 
would  be  trifling.  But  the  books  were  impor- 
tant. Without  the  books  it  would  be  impossible 
to  learn  just  what  stock  was  in  the  place.  His 
mind  naturally  embraced  his  own  special  de- 
partment— the  checking  of  invoices  and  their 
entry  in  the  stock-book.  Yes!  And  the  stock- 
book  was  never  put  away  in  the  safe.  It  was  a 
bulky  volume  and  took  up  too  much  room  to 
be  accommodated  there.  In  a  flash  of  enlight- 
enment, Stanton  perceived  that  this  particular 
book,  and  the  invoices  of  the  manufacturers  and 
jobbers  from  whom  Mr.  Borlase  purchased  his 
supplies,  would  be  all-important  now.  Forget- 
ting danger  as  easily  as  he  had  forgotten  the 
presence  of  Mr.  Peters,  he  made,  before  that 
young  man's  neglected  eyes,  a  sudden  and  va- 
liant dash,  jumping  over  the  sinuous,  canvas- 
covered  hose,  and  ran  through  the  shattered 
door  of  the  shop. 

"  Where  are  you  coming  to  ?  What's  the 
police  doing  of?  "  inquired  an  emergent  fireman 
indignantly. 

"  It's  all  right,"  Stanton  replied  breathlessly. 
"  My  name's  Borlase."  He  passed  through  the 
door,  into  a  dense  mass  of  steam  and  of  stifling 
smoke  that  made  his  eyes  smart.  There  was  a 
lurid  illumination  from  the  burning  warehouse 
behind,  and  he,  by  its  light,  made  his  way  with- 
out difficulty  to  Wickstecl's  desk.  It  was  locked. 
He  put  his  shoulder  under  the  projecting  lip  of 
the  lid  and  tried  to  force  it.  The  good  mahog- 
any resisted.  He  stooped  lower,  and  tried 


BORLASE   &   SON  269 

again,  using  the  muscles  of  his  legs,  the  muscles 
by  which  we  stand  on  tiptoe — the  strongest  set 
of  muscles,  Chippendale,  learned  in  anatomy, 
had  told  him,  in  the  human  frame.  Odd  that 
this  useful  recollection  should  come  back  to  him 
now!  The  desk  flew  up  with  a  crash  of  splin- 
tered wood,  the  lock  torn  bodily  from  its  place. 
He  threw  aside  all  the  contents  of  the  hinged 
desk  and  pulled  out  the  book  by  its  stout  leather 
back.  On  a  nail  at  the  side  hung  a  bulky  apron- 
file,  covered  with  green  binding-cloth,  which 
protected  the  unentered  invoices,  and  with  the 
file  in  his  hand,  and  the  vast  ledger  under  his 
arm,  he  staggered  out  of  the  shop,  tripping  once 
on  the  hose. 

The  friendly  police  sergeant  met  him. 

"  Where  can  I  stow  these  ?  "  Stanton  asked. 
"  They're  important." 

"  Better  take  them  to  the  '  Denmark  Arms/  *' 
the  sergeant  suggested,  and,  detailing  a  couple 
of  his  men  to  force  a  passage  for  Stanton,  he 
went  back  to  his  duty. 

At  the  public-house  an  excited  landlord  re- 
ceived him,  introduced  by  the  police  as  Mr. 
Borlase,  Junior,  and  readily  took  charge  of  his 
salvage.  While  the  book  and  papejs  were  being 
put  under  lock  and  key,  as  Stanton  demanded, 
a  loud  crash  followed  by  a  shout  from  the  crowd 
and  a  scurrying  of  feet,  caused  the  police  to 
hasten  out.  Stanton  caught  them  up  and  was 
helped  through  the  crowd,  which,  indeed,  he 
would  hardly  have  penetrated  alone. 

The  roof  had  fallen  in,  and  the  weight  of  a 


2/o  BORLASE   &   SON 

couple  of  iron  girders,  crashing  down  upon  the 
charred  ceiling  of  the  shop,  had  made  the  whole 
place  a  mass  of  brightly  burning  ruins,  scarcely 
as  high  as  the  shop  itself  had  been  when  Stanton 
rushed  out  of  it  three  minutes  earlier.  A  sud- 
den chill  at  the  spine  seized  him:  we  are  rarely 
frightened  while  in  danger;  it  is  only  after  we 
have  escaped  that  fear  comes. 

The  firemen  were  being  counted  by  their 
chief.  One  man  was  missing.  The  whole  force 
of  available  water  was  directed  into  the  centre 
of  the  blazing  mass,  and,  the  real  bulk  of  the 
material  being  now  small,  quickly  had  effect.  In 
a  couple  of  minutes  came  a  fresh  cmcute  at  the 
back  of  the  crowd,  among  which  the  news  of  a 
missing  fireman  had  spread  as  quickly  as  fire  it- 
self. There  was  a  confused  shout,  then  a  com- 
motion, three  of  four  men  overturned,  and  a 
blackened  fireman  dashed  into  the  open  space, 
axe  in  hand. 

"  Where's  Jim  ?  "  shouted  the  chief  fireman. 

"  He's  out.  He's  all  right,"  replied  the  new- 
comer. "  The  top  floor  in  Camera  Street  is 
standing.  We  broke  the  door  out." 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  the  chief.  "  Get  along 
and  unbend  that  hose  from  the  Lordship  Lane 
steamer.  It's  no  good  now;  it's  clipped  in  the 
breakage.  Bend  the  spare  hose  on:  you  need 
all  the  water  you  can  get." 

Stanton  stood  helpless.  Then  the  late  danger 
of  the  firemen  put  another  thought  into  his 
mind,  and  he  made  his  way  slowly  back  through 
the  crowd  to  the  "  Denmark  Arms." 


BORLASE   &   SON  271 

"Are  all  the  girls  here?  "  he  asked  the  land- 
lord. 

"  Not  all  of  'em,"  was  the  reply.  "  Seventeen. 
It's  all  we  could  take  in.  Some  are  next  door. 
Some  more  across  the  street — at  number  five," 

"  How  many  in  all?  "  Stanton  asked. 

"  Couldn't  say.     We've  got  seventeen  here." 

Stanton  went  to  the  next  house.  The  door 
was  open  and  a  woman  stood  in  the  porch. 

"  I  am  Stanton  Borlase,"  he  said — he  seemed 
to  have  been  always  saying  this,  to-night. 
"  How  many  of  the  assistants  have  you  here  ?  " 

"  Six,"  replied  the  woman.  "  A  good  many 
of  'em's  at  the  '  Denmark  Arms.'  Some  more 
at  number  five.  They  corned  out  in  their  night- 
gowns, or  a  skirt  wropped  round  'em  mostly. 
They  went  in  where  they  could." 

Seventeen — six.  That  made  twenty-three. 
There  should  be  about  six  more  then  at  the 
other  house  if  everyone  had  been  saved.  Stan- 
ton  crossed  the  street  and  knocked  loudly  at 
number  five.  One  or  two  heads  were  protruded 
from  the  windows,  and  he  recognised  a  girl  of 
the  shop.  "  How  many  of  you  there?  "  he  called 
up. 

"  Four." 

"Only  four?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Are  you  sure?  " 

"Certain.    Why?" 

"  How  many  were  there  in  the  shop  ?  " 

"Thirty.     Isn't  everyone  out ?" 

As  this  question  came  down  from  the  window 


272  BORLASE   &   SON 

the  door  opened  and  a  girl  clad  in  a  man's  ulster, 
and  with  a  shawl  over  her  head,  stood  before 
him. 

"Why,  is  that  you,  sir?"  she  said.  Then 
turned  and  called  along  the  passage :  "  Miss 
Wilkinson,  here's  Mr.  Stanton  Borlase." 

"  Never  mind  Miss  Wilkinson,"  Stanton  re- 
plied. "  I  want  to  know  how  many  young  ladies 
went  to  bed  at  the  shop  last  night." 

The  girl  before  him  was  silent,  to  think,  pull- 
ing her  top  lip  down  with  her  ringer  and  thumb, 
and  fumbling  at  the  pockets  of  her  coat.  "  Let's 
see,"  she  said.  "  Everybody,  I  think.  I  don't 
think  there  was  anyone  staying  out." 

The  girl  whom  she  had  called  joined  them. 
"  Yes,  there  was,"  she  said.  "  I  think  Miss 
Beaton  was  out.  She  does  sometimes  go,  you 
know,  to  her  married  sister's,  at  Nunhead." 

"  Yes,  that's  right,  dear,"  the  first  girl  agreed. 
"  She  was  out.  I  remember  now.  Oh,  Mr.  Bor- 
lase, what  are  we  all  going  to  do  to-morrow? 
No  clothes,  no  nothing." 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  replied  impatiently. 
"  The  thing  is,  now,  to  know  whether  any  of 
you  have  been  killed.  Are  there  any  girls  any- 
where but  in  these  three  houses — the  public- 
house,  the  house  next  door  to  it  and  here?  " 

"  We  don't  know,  sir,"  Miss  Wilkinson  re- 
plied. She  was  a  much  more  intelligent  woman 
than  her  colleague  in  the  ulster.  "  You  see,  we 
were  all  so  frightened  and  so — so  confused,  run- 
ning out  into  the  street  in  our  bedgowns,  that 
we  couldn't  think  of  anything.  But  someone 
said  everyone  was  out." 


BORLASE   &   SON  273' 

"Who?" 

"  I  don't  know.    Who  was  it,  Milly?  " 

"  Everyone  said  so,"  the  other  girl  replied. 

"The  governor  wasn't  in  the  house?"  Stan- 
ton  asked. 

"  No ;  he  hadn't  come  back,"  said  Miss  Wil- 
kinson. "  Mrs.  Dobson  said  he  went  out  about 
ten  o'clock.  And  now  I  remember,  I  think  it 
was  Mrs.  Dobson  that  said  everyone  was  out." 

Stanton  caught  at  this  "  Where  is  she — 
where  is  Mrs.  Dobson?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Not  here.  She  must  be  at 
the  '  Denmark  Arms '  or  the  other  house." 

Stanton  left  them  and  returned  to  the  public- 
house — still  wide  open,  in  defiance  of  the  law 
and  of  the  near  police  force,  though  it  was  long 
after  closing  time.  However,  the  beer  engine 
had  been  secured  by  its  padlocked  brass  rod, 
and  all  the  lights  except  a  couple  in  the  side 
window  were  extinguished. 

"Is  the  housekeeper  here?"  Stanton  de- 
manded of  the  proprietor — a  short  man  with  a 
husky  voice  and  protuberant  abdomen. 

"  Yes,  sir;  she's  upstairs — gone  to  bed  in  one 
of  the  barmaids'  rooms.  She  was  in  a  frightful 
state  when  she  come — nearly  in  a  fit." 

"  She  must  be  sent  for,  all  the  same,"  said 
Stanton. 

"  All  right,  sir.    I'll  call  her." 

Mrs.  Dobson  had  evidently  not  gone  to  bed 
as  the  publican  averred,  for  she  promptly  ap- 
peared, clad  in  a  long  waterproof  belonging  to 
the  barmaid.  She  was  in  tears,  wringing  her 
is 


274  BORLASE   &   SON 

hands  and  trembling.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Borlase,  sir," 
she  broke  out  on  seeing  Stanton,  whose  appear- 
ance on  the  scene  she  treated  as  quite  a  matter 
of  course.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Borlase,  sir,  Mr.  Bor- 
lase!" 

She  sank  into  a  chair  in  the  bar-parlour, 
where  Stanton  had  received  her,  and  covered 
her  face  with  a  handkerchief,  rocking  herself  to 
and  fro. 

"Oh,"  she  wailed,  "oh,  the  fire!  Mr.  Bor- 
lase !  Oh,  the  fire !  In  my  very  bedroom,  sir !  " 
The  invasion  of  this  sacred  apartment  by  undis- 
criminating  flames  seemed  to  absorb  her  whole 
consciousness — seemed  to  represent  for  her  the 
last  outrage  of  a  cruel  fate. 

"  Come,  I  want  to  speak  to  you,"  Stanton 
said. 

She  looked  up,  trembling  and  choking. 

"  Did  you  count  the  young  ladies?  "  Stanton 
asked.  "  Is  everyone  out?  " 

He  might  have  spared  her  the  question.  It 
was  evident  that  she  had  been  in  depths  of  panic 
too  great  to  let  her  think  of  anything  but  the 
extremity  of  her  fear. 

She  made,  indeed,  no  answer,  covering  her 
face  again  and  sobbing,  "  Oh,  the  fire !  the  fire !  " 

"  She  said  as  everyone  was  out,"  the  publican 
declared.  "  You  said  so,  didn't  you?  " 

The  woman  looked  up.  "  Yes,  yes,  everyone 
was  out,"  she  replied  vacantly,  and  dissolved  in 
new  floods. 

"  How  do  you  know  that  everyone  was  out?  " 
Stanton  persistently  demanded.  "  Did  you 
count  them?  " 


BORLASE   &   SON  275 

"  Everyone — everyone.  In  their  nightgowns, 
Mr.  Borlase,  sir.  Everyone  in  their  nightgowns, 
and  me,  too,  sir,  out  of  the  fire." 

"  Yes,  yes,  they  were  in  their  nightgowns ;  but 
did  you  count  them  ?  " 

"  No,  no.  They  came  out.  In  their  night- 
gowns," she  insisted. 

"  You  didn't  count  them  ?  How  do  you  know 
that  they  all  came  out  ?  Was  everyone  at  home 
at  bedtime?" 

"  Yes,  yes.    Everyone.    They  all  came " 

"  Was  Miss  Beaton  at  home?  " 

"  No,  sir.  She  went  out  after  the  shop  shut, 
to  sleep  out." 

"  Anyone  else  out?  " 

"  No-o.    No.    All  the  rest " 

"  There  are  two  girls  not  accounted  for, 
then,"  said  Stanton  sternly.  "  Unless  any  of 
them  went  somewhere  else.  Did  you  see  where 
everyone  went  to?  " 

The  publican  answered  for  her.  "  She  didn't 
see  nothink,  sir,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "  She 
was  in  such  a  taking  that,  in  a  manner  of  speak- 
in',  she  didn't  see  nothink." 

"  Well,  then,  there  are  two  girls  burned !  " 
said  Stanton  grimly.  "  I  must  go  back  to  the 
house." 

The  crowd  had  melted  away  now,  and  of  Bor- 
lase &  Company's  Emporium  all  that  remained 
were  the  walls,  blackened  and  drenched,  and  a 
vast  mass  of  still  steaming  ruins. 

"  Has  anything  been  heard  of  Mr.  Borlase?  " 
Stanton  asked  the  head  salvage  corps  man. 


276  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  He's  been  here,  and  gone  away  again,"  was 
the  reply. 

"  He  was  terribly  broken  up,"  said  a  police- 
man, standing  by.  "  '  Everything  gone  ?  '  he 
says.  'My  books  and  everything?  I'm 
ruined ! '  he  says.  *  I  can't  tell  what  my  loss  is/ 
he  says." 

"Do  you  know  where  he  went?"  Stanton 
asked. 

The  captain  answered.  "  He  said  he  would 
go  across  to  the  South  Camberwell  Hotel  and 
get  a  bed  there.  Covered  by  insurance,  I  under- 
stand, sir?  " 

"  Sure  to  be,"  Stanton  replied  succinctly. 
"  But  that's  not  the  point.  There  are  two  girls 
missing." 

"  Why,  we  were  told  everyone  was  out." 

"  No  one  was  seen  at  the  windows,  then?  " 

"  Not  a  soul.  If  any  didn't  get  out,  they 
would  have  been  suffocated  by  the  smoke  before 
the  alarm  was  given." 

"This  is  terrible!" 

"  They  may  have  got  away  somewhere,  sir. 
We  can't  say  positively  that  they  were  killed. 
It  oftens  happens  that  someone  disappears  like 
that  and  turns  up  again  next  morning.  I'll  get 
all  the  stuff  moved  as  quickly  as  I  can  in  the 
morning:  but  there's  no  touching  it  now.  The 
firemen  have  mostly  gone  away.  They've  noth- 
ing to  do  with  us,  you  know.  There  was  an- 
other call  just  as  the  owner  left — a  private  dwell- 
ing house  in  East  Dulwich,  and  the  men  were 
sent  off." 


BORLASE   &   SON  277 

"  Isn't  it  possible  to  do  anything?  Are  you 
sure?" 

"  We  might  try." 

"  Do,  for  God's  sake !  I  can't  go  away  until 
we  know." 

"  You  can't  be  sure,  to-night,  sir,  unless — 
unless  we  found  something.  There's  no  possi- 
bility otherwise.  The  worst  is  the  only  thing 
you  can  find." 

"  Well,  let  us  try.  Let  us  at  least  see  what 
can  be  found.  They  couldn't  possibly  be  alive 
still?" 

"  Not  possibly,  under  all  that.  If  you'll  wait 
a  while,  I  will  see  what  can  be  done." 

The  officer  hurried  off,  and  Stanton  paced 
up  and  down  before  the  ruins,  watching  the  dif- 
ficult process  of  pulling  down  and  dragging  off 
masses  of  damp,  hot  merchandise.  By  degrees, 
he  became  aware  that  he  was  cold,  and  that  his 
boots  were  squidgy  with  wet.  He  went,  after 
a  while,  to  the  "  Denmark  Arms  "  again,  now 
closed,  awakened  the  obliging  landlord  by  loud 
knocking,  and  obtained  food.  When  he  re- 
turned, work  on  the  ruins  had  ceased.  The  sal- 
vage-corps men  were  gathered  in  a  grave-faced 
knot.  Yes.  They  had  indeed  found  the  only 
certainty  that  the  salvage-corps  officer  had  said 
could  be  found.  They  had  found  the  worst. 


Mr.  Peters,  meanwhile,  had  gone  disconso- 
lately home.  The  Whebles  had  been  in  bed  a 
long  time.  It  was  only  in  the  morning  that, 


278  BORLASE  &   SON 

coming  into  the  kitchen  to  recount  the  nignt's 
events,  he  enjoyed  their  delighted  audience. 

"  It  was  a  rum  affair,  altogether,"  he  said,  at 
the  end.  "  Stanton,  that  chap  from  the  office, 
that  came  in  with  me  on  our  way  to  the  theatre, 
you  know,  seemed  to  know  something  about  it, 
because — what  I  mean — no  sooner  had  we  got 
there  than  he  walks  up  to  the  head  bobby,  as 
bold  as  brass,  and  steps  into  the  middle." 

"  Fancy !  "  said  Prudence.  "  He  seemed  such 
a  quiet  young  fellow." 

"  Well,  he  wasn't  quiet  last  night,"  Mr.  Peters 
averred.  "  He  walked  away  from  me  and  shoved 
himself  clear  into  the  middle  of  the  firemen.  I 
lost  sight  of  him  for  a  bit — there  was  an  awful 
crowd — but  presently  I  saw  him  go  rushing 
right  into  the  shop.  It  was  only  a  minute  before 
the  roof  fell  in." 

"  Fancy !  "  Prudence  repeated. 

"  What  a  nerve !  "  said  Mrs.  Wheble. 

"  Rushed  in,"  said  Mr.  Peters,  "  and  fetched 
something  out.  Then  he  went  off  the  other  way, 
and  I  didn't  see  any  more  of  him.  There  was  no 
more  to  see,  so  I  came  home.  The  people 
round  about  said,  '  That's  young  Borlase ! '  But 
that  must  have  been  a  mistake.  Only  I  remem- 
bered then  that  he  told  me  once  he  had  been 
at  Borlase's,  because  he  asked  me  about  my 
young  brother.  He  used  to  be  there,  you 
know." 

"  But  why  did  they  say  he  was  young  Bor- 
lase?" Mrs.  Wheble  enquired. 

"  I  dunno,"  Mr.  Peters  replied  aggrievedly. 


BORLASE   &   SON  279 

"  It  must  have  been  a  mistake.  What  I  mean, 
I  suppose  they  thought  he  must  be  some  one 
connected  with  the  firm  from  the  way  he  took 
upon  himself  to  break  into  the  front  of  the 
policemen.  He  never  looked  back  at  me,  nor 
asked  me  if  I  was  coming,  nor  nothing,"  Mr. 
Peters  concluded. 
"  Just  think  of  it !  "  said  Prudence. 


CHAPTER    XXII 

BORLASE   &   SON 

ENQUIRY  at  the  South  Camberwell  Hotel  only 
eliciting  from  an  aroused  and  slightly  indignant 
porter  the  information  that  Mr.  Borlase  had 
"  gone  to  bed  long  ago,"  Stanton  made  his  way 
homeward  to  get  what  rest  the  remainder  of  the 
night  might  allow. 

He  rose  in  good  time  and  hastened  to  the  city. 
Here  he  asked  of  Edmund  Douglas  a  day's 
leave,  and  had  departed  again  before  the  arrival 
of  the  book-keeper,  who  usually  came  in,  nowa- 
days, at  a  quarter  past  nine. 

The  other  clerks,  also  more  punctual  than  of 
old,  observed  with  surprise  that  Stanton  did  not 
hang  up  his  hat,  and  that  he  closeted  himself 
for  some  time  with  Mr.  Edmund  in  the  type- 
writer's room.  As  he  passed  out  through  the 
office,  Lucraft  called  after  him : 

"  Hullo !    Going  out  again  ?  " 

"What's  up?    111?" 

"  No.  I've  got  some  private  business  to  at- 
tend to." 

Lucraft  shrugged  his  shoulders.  It  was  not 
thus  curtly  that  Stanton  would  have  answered 
such  questions  a  year  ago.  Mr.  Schneider, 
bustling  in,  quH-1-  missed  the  absentee. 


BORLASE  &   SON  281 

"  Where  is  der  boy?  "  he  asked  Thurlow  priv- 
ily, coming  up  to  the  latter's  desk. 

"  Gone  away  for  the  day :  asked  leave,"  Thur- 
low replied  in  a  whisper. 

The  book-keeper  sniffed,  and  put  the  same 
question,  with  the  same  privacy  and  the  same 
result,  to  Peters. 

Then,  standing  before  the  safe  and  looking  up 
and  down  the  office,  he  again  made  enquiry — 
this  time  aloud. 

"  I  don'd  see  Mr.  Stanton,"  he  said,  address- 
ing the  world  at  large. 

"  He  asked  Mr.  Edmund  to  let  him  off  for  the 
day,"  said  Thurlow,  swinging  round  on  his  stool 
to  face  his  superior.  Peters  and  Lucraft  ceased 
their  affectation  of  labour. 

"  My  Gott,  A'mighty  Gott !  "  said  Mr.  Schnei- 
der, "  der  world  is  come  to  a  bretty  pass  when 
der  chunior  clerks  walk  mit  demselves  off  for 
not'ing.  I  dink  I  might  have  been  gonsulted." 

"  He  went  away  very  mysteriously,  Mr. 
Schneider,"  said  Lucraft,  with  some  malice. 
"  Private  business." 

"  Brivate  pizness !  "  sniffed  the  book-keeper. 
"  I  nefer  hear  such  t'ings  till  der  son  from  der 
gofernor  gome  in  and  make  der  apple-pie  from 
eferytink.  I  subbose  7  got  to  copy  der  letters 
und  run  to  der  post,  isn't  it?  Brivate  pizness!  " 

"  I  should  speak  to  him,"  said  Thurlow,  the 
jackal,  sententiously. 

This  condign  proceeding  seemed  to  commend 
itself  to  the  book-keeper. 

"  Zerdainly,  isn't  it  ?  "  he  said. 


282  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  After  all,"  Lucraft  added,  "  it  wouldn't  have 
delayed  him  very  long  to  have  given  some  sort 
of  explanation.  It  would  have  been  better  man- 
ners." 

"  Ach !  I  subbose  all  der  goot  manners  hass 
been  kept  for  der  son  from  der  gofernor,"  said 
Mr.  Schneider.  "  Well,  come,  chentlemen.  I 
subbose  we  better  gets  to  work,  as  we  haf  no 
brivate  exguses  been  making.  Will  you  get  der 
account-current  pook  oud  from  der  safe,  Mr. 
Peters,  please?  " 

And  the  storm  ended  in  the  usual  teacup,  the 
office  resuming  its  habitual  condition. 

Meantime,  as  fast  as  the  leisurely  trains  of  the 
Suburban  Railway  would  permit,  Stanton  Bor- 
lase  was  hurrying  to  meet  his  guardian.  The 
events  of  last  night  had  precipitated  the  time  of 
their  reunion.  He  had  a  good  account  to  give 
of  himself.  He  had  accomplished,  within  a  few 
days,  Mr.  Borlase's  injunction  to  support  him- 
self without  loss  of  capital  for  a  year;  and  his 
bold  dash  into  danger  last  night  would,  he  felt, 
commend  itself  to  his  guardian  as  an  act  of  deci- 
sion and  forethought.  The  apprehension  with 
which,  in  spite  of  all  his  moral  growth,  he  had 
looked  forward  to  a  meeting  widely  different 
in  circumstances  from  this,  had  vanished.  He 
walked  with  a  firm  and  self-reliant  step  into 
what  was  distinguished  specifically  as  the  Hotel 
Entrance  of  the  South  Camberwell  Hotel,  really 
no  more  than  a  glorified  public-house,  and  sent 
up  his  name  (a  communication  which  secured 
for  him  a  great  accession  of  deference)  to  Mr. 


BORLASE   &   SON  283 

Borlase.  The  latter  was,  he  learned,  breakfast- 
ing on  the  first  floor. 

In  those  few  moments,  while  he  awaited  his 
guardian's  summons,  Stanton  was  conscious  of 
a  certain  uneasiness,  a  certain  recrudescence  of 
the  old  nervous  awe.  The  words  he  had  formu- 
lated for  himself  over  and  over  again  when,  dur- 
ing the  last  few  weeks,  he  had  looked  to  a  meet- 
ing at  the  Emporium — even  those  revised 
phrases  which  he  had  prepared  this  morning  in 
the  train,  suddenly  rose  up  before  him  and  re- 
vealed their  naked  ineptitude.  What,  after  all, 
would  Mr.  Borlase  say?  He  perceived  himself 
to  have  forgotten  the  salient  fact  that  it  was  Mr. 
Borlase  who  had  been  accustomed  to  direct  the 
form  of  every  conversation.  When  at  last  he 
was  bidden  upstairs,  he  mounted  in  perturba- 
tion, unarmed,  unready. 

The  room  in  which  Mr.  Borlase  sate  was  not 
the  large  dining-room  where  (as  a  bill  in  the 
window  of  the  South  Camberwell  Hotel  confides 
to  the  public)  a  select  ordinary  at  one-and-three- 
pence,  including  cheese,  is  daily  served  from 
half-past  one  to  three.  The  local  magnate  had 
commanded  a  private  sitting-room,  and  here, 
before  a  cheerful  fire,  he  sate,  pushed  back  from 
his  breakfast-table,  his  eyes  on  a  newspaper. 
No  doubt  he  had  been  reading  the  accounts  of 
last  night's  burning,  for  a  pile  of  such  papers  lay 
on  a  corner  of  the  sofa  near  him.  He  looked  up 
as  Stanton  entered,  and  added  this  one  to  the 
rest. 

Mr.    Borlase   had   aged   noticeably   in   this 


284  BORLASE   &   SON 

twelvemonth.  He  was  haggard,  and  his  face 
wore  an  unhealthy,  congested  flush.  His  brow 
was  damp  with  perspiration,  his  breathing  ir- 
regular and  painful.  He  clasped  and  unclasped 
his  hands,  holding  them  out  to  the  blaze  of  the 
insufferable  fire,  which,  even  at  this  distance, 
burned  Stanton's  cheeks  and  eyes. 

"  Hallo,  Stanton !  "  said  the  draper  nervously. 
"  So  you've  heard?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  Stanton  replied.     "  I  was  there." 

"  You  were  there !  " 

"  Yes.  I  happened  to  be  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, and  I  followed  one  of  the  engines." 

"  Well,  it's  a  dreadful  business,"  said  Mr.  Bor- 
lase.  "  Dreadful !  Not  a  stick  saved !  I  was 
just  going  round  there." 

"  You  know  then — "  Stanton  began,  and  hesi- 
tated. 

"  You  know — "  he  faltered  again. 

"Know  what?"  asked  Mr.  Borlase  testily. 
"  I  know  everything,  of  course.  It's  completely 
upset  me.  My  head  has  been  throbbing  all  the 
morning,  and  I'm  so  giddy  I  can  hardly  walk." 

Mr.  Borlase  shook  himself  irritably,  and 
rubbed  and  pinched  his  right  leg  as  though  it 
were  numb  from  some  cause. 

"  But  do  you  know — "  Stanton  began  again. 

"  Know  what  ?  "  his  guardian  again  peevishly 
interrupted. 

"  That  there  were  two  girls  burned  ?  " 

"  Yes.  I  know  that.  It's  in  all  the  papers. 
Miss  Harris  and.  Miss  Jennings." 

"  Ah !    I  didn't  know  the  names,"  said  Stan- 


BORLASE   &   SON  285 

ton.  "  I  could  only  count  them  by  hearsay. 
Poor  creatures !  It  is  frightful." 

Mr.  Borlase  looked  moodily  in  the  fire. 
"  Yes.  There'll  be  a  lot  to  do,"  he  said.  "  I 
must  go  up  to  the  City,  as  soon  as  I've  seen  the 
fire-station  people,  and  interview  the  insurance 
company." 

The  insurance  company !  And  this  was  what 
occupied  Mr.  Borlase's  mind?  Not  those 
charred,  those  battered,  nameless  corpses  that 
had  possessed  and  tormented  Stanton's  mind: 
not  the  searing,  paralysing  responsibility  of  their 
neglected  death — forgotten  in  the  flames:  not 
even  the  plight  of  the  unclad,  houseless  sur- 
vivors. The  insurance  company! 

He  stood,  for  a  moment  silenced  by  the  utter 
uncommunion  of  minds  in  which  he  found  him- 
self. Turning  for  an  instant,  he  faced  the  win- 
dow, and  saw  from  it  the  "  leads  "  of  an  oppos- 
ing house,  where  a  row  of  ill-washed  under- 
clothes flapped  and  bellied  in  a  gusty  March 
wind. 

"  It's  a  bleak  day,"  said  Mr.  Borlase,  and 
Stanton  saw  him  stretch  his  legs  towards  the 
grate. 

"  There's  one  thing  you  will  like  to  know," 
Stanton  said.  "  I  ran  into  the  shop  myself,  al- 
most at  the  last  moment,  and  saved  the  stock- 
book  and  the  invoice  file.  I  knew  how  neces- 
sary they  would  be  to  you." 

The  effect  of  this  announcement  was  as  as- 
tonishing as  unforeseen. 

Stanton  had  turned  to  the  window  again  as  he 


286  BORLASE   &   SON 

made  it,  in  that  odd  listlessness  which  overtakes 
us  at  moments  of  great  tension,  or  when  an  im- 
mense detachment  from  one  we  talk  with  makes 
us  suddenly  aware  of  the  impregnable  privacy 
of  man's  soul.  It  was  by  a  sound  beside  him 
that  he  was  brought  quickly  back  into  the  room. 
His  guardian  was  standing  up,  his  jaw  fallen,  his 
eyes  aghast,  the  veins  of  his  forehead  standing 
tense  and  black  against  the  livid,  tight-drawn 
skin. 

"  You  what?  "  he  gasped. 

"  I  saved  the  stock-book  and " 

Mr.  Borlase's  amazement  and  passion  over- 
flowed. His  teeth  closed  violently,  revealed  by 
his  drawn  lips.  "  You  damned,  ignorant  little 
fool !  "  he  said,  expectorating  the  words  fiercely 
through  the  clenched  incisors,  bared  like  a 
dog's.  "  You  meddler !  You  dolt !  You  have 
ruined  everything ! " 

Stanton  stepped  back  a  pace.  Mr.  Borlase 
had  raised  his  fists;  for  a  moment  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  he  were  about  to  fall  upon  him,  to 
seize  his  throat,  to  batter-in  his  face.  ,But  it  was 
to  his  own  brow  that  Mr.  Borlase  directed  the 
blow,  grinding  the  knuckles  into  his  skull,  his 
face  working,  his  lips  seeming  to  form  words 
that  he  could  not  find  breath  to  utter.  At  length 
he  sank,  exhausted,  as  in  a  sudden  epileptiform 
spasm,  into  a  chair  and  panted  and  strove  for 
breath. 

Stanton,  who  all  this  time  had  not  sat  down 
— had  not,  indeed,  been  invited  to  a  chair — 
walked  the  short  length  of  the  room,  amazed 


BORLASE   &   SON  287 

and  overwhelmed,  knowing  not  what  to  say, 
failing  utterly  to  grasp  this  unaccountable,  un- 
looked-for position.  On  the  end  wall,  sur- 
mounted by  a  set  of  Prince  of  Wales's  feathers 
and  decorated  with  the  square  and  compasses, 
the  pillars,  the  gavel,  and  the  plumb-rule  of  the 
Craft,  hung  a  gilt  frame,  containing  a  Masonic 
Certificate.  On  either  side  was  a  coloured  print 
having  allusion  to  the  regretted  sport  of  cock- 
fighting.  On  another  wall  a  bloodthirsty-look- 
ing pike,  stuffed  and  varnished,  made  pretence 
of  swimming  in  the  unreal  medium  of  a  glass 
case.  A  mahogany  sideboard  bore  a  number 
of  inscribed  tankards  in  electro-plate,  tributary 
to  the  landlord's  prowess  as  a  sportsman.  All 
these  things  Stanton  looked  at  without  familiar- 
ising himself  with  them :  it  was  only  afterwards, 
when  he  entered  the  room  again,  after  many 
tumultuous  hours,  that  he  recognised  them  as 
objects  impressed  intimately  on  his  perception. 
Only  of  one  thing  was  he  now  conscious — that 
he  no  longer  feared  his  guardian :  that  he  was 
a  man,  and  his  own  master :  that  whatever  might 
be  the  explanation  of  the  outburst  he  had  just 
listened  to,  he  was  ready  for  it,  and  would  meet 
it. 

Mr.  Borlase  at  length  rose  again,  frowning, 
and  with  a  face,  now  red  and  turgid,  stamped  in 
every  lineament  with  despair. 

"  Where  are  they  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Have  you 
taken  them  home  with  you?  Did  anyone  see 
them?" 

''  Certainly  some  one  saw  them,"  replied  Stan- 


288  BORLASE   &   SON 

ton  stiffly.  "  They  are  locked  up  at  the  '  Den- 
mark Arms/ ' 

"  Almighty  God !  is  there  nothing  I  can  do 
without  being  intruded  upon  by  some  incom- 
petent?" cried  Mr.  Borlase.  "Do  you  know 
what  you  have  done?  You  have  broken  me. 
I  am  ruined.  Oh,  I  am  well  punished  for  you ! 
You  blitherer,  you  dolt,  /  made  that  fire !  I  set 
the  house  alight!  /  risked  penal  servitude  for 
this !  Look  here !  "  He  tore  a  bundle  of  thin 
papers  from  his  pocket.  "  This  is  what  I  pre- 
pared. This  is  what  I  was  going  to  claim — for 
you,  as  well  as  for  myself.  I  tell  you,  I  was 
ruined.  Business  had  gone  to  pot.  That  in- 
fernal shop  of  Smith  &  Perks  down  the  Lane  has 
knocked  the  bottom  out  of  prices.  All  my  in- 
vestments are  swallowed  up.  This  was  the  only 
thing  left.  If  I  could  have  got  straight  with 
this — and  I  had  paid  my  premium,  God  knows, 
dearly  enough,  year  after  year,  in  case  of  a  fire 
that  never  came;  they  never  do  come  when 
they're  wanted — if  I  could  once  have  got 
straight,  I  could  have  gone  on  again,  with  a 
new  shop  and  new  stock!  And  you — you've 
ruined  everything!  You're  a  pauper,  as  you 
began,  and  I'm  one,  too." 

He  raised  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  choked 
with  wrath  and  reckless  misery — too  utterly 
broken  and  destroyed  to  care  what  crimes  he 
revealed.  Stanton  turned  on  him  with  anger 
almost  as  great  as  his  own. 

"  You  scoundrel !  "  he  cried.  "  You  mur- 
derer! Do  you  see  what  you  are?  You  are  a 


BORLASE   &   SON  289 

murderer!  You  have  killed  those  girls.  You 
shall  hang!" 

Mr.  Borlase  fell  back  into  a  chair,  suddenly 
prostrate,  white,  whimpering.  This  transforma- 
tion in  the  nervous,  timid  tool  he  had  known — 
this  sudden  uprising  of  a  denouncing  spirit, 
strong  in  righteous  horror,  stemmed  the  tide  of 
ire  that  had  been  heedless  and  uncontrollable  an 
instant  before.  "Murder?"  he  whispered,  his 
lips  loose  and  shaking.  "  Murder?  " 

"  It  is  wilful  murder !  "  Stanton  answered, 
with  grim  precision.  "  Murder,  murder,  mur- 
der !  Blood-guiltiness  and  murder !  " 

"  My  God !  "  said  Borlase,  still  in  the  same 
frightened  whisper.  "  Hush !  Don't  say  it. 
Don't  speak  so  loud." 

"So  loud?"  echoed  Stanton.  "As  loud  as 
you  like.  Do  you  think  I  will  shield  you? 
Never,  as  long  as  I  live.  I  will  denounce  you ; 
I  will  lock  you  up;  I  will  hang  you!  Do  you 
know  that  I  stood  by  the  corpses  of  those  girls 
you  killed — you?  Ah,  if  you  had  seen  them 
blacked  to  cinders,  crushed,  and  naked,  and 
burned  out  of  all  humanity,  I  think  you  would 
denounce  yourself — even  you !  " 

His  lip  trembled,  and  he  turned  at  last  his 
eyes  from  the  eyes  that  were  cast  down  before 
his  and  could  not  meet  his  face. 

"  You  won't !  You  daren't !  You  never 
will !  "  Borlase  said  hoarsely. 

"  As  God  hears  me,  I  will.  I  couldn't  live  if  I 
didn't,"  Stanton  answered.  He  sate  down  in  a 
chair  and  threw  back  his  head  in  a  gesture  of 
19 


290  BORLASE   &   SON 

despair.  He  gave  a  queer,  coughing  laugh,  very 
low,  as  the  thought  suddenly  came  to  him  that 
he  had  never  announced,  would  now  never  an- 
nounce to  his  guardian,  that  he,  who  had  been 
put  to  the  door  to  shift  for  himself  and  prove 
his  worth,  had  proved  it,  had  supported  him- 
self for  a  year  and  had  brought  back  what  was 
lent  him.  Even  now  the  recollection  was  but 
momentary:  the  horror  of  the  situation  he  had 
created  blotted  everything  out.  Suddenly  Mr. 
Borlase  sat  up  and  looked  him  in  the  face  again 
for  a  long  instant,  his  lips  firm,  and  some  of 
the  old  command  in  his  face. 

"  Do  it,"  he  said.  "  I  am  your  father.  You 
are  really  my  son.  Your  mother  was  a  girl  in 
my  shop !  " 

Stanton  sprang  to  his  feet,  his  mouth  awry, 
his  eyes  distended,  the  blood  driven  to  his  heart 
by  this,  the  last  revelation  of  this  extraordinary 
morning.  As  he  stood,  transfixed,  there  was  a 
knock  at  the  door,  and  a  waiter,  in  greasy  even- 
ing dress,  entered.  At  the  same  instant,  Mr. 
Borlase  uttered  a  hoarse,  choking  cry,  and  fell 
with  a  crash,  full  length  to  the  floor,  a  little 
blood  issuing  from  his  nose  and  mouth. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THICKER   THAN   WATER 

A  DAY  or  two  later,  when  he  made  his  daily  call 
at  the  South  Camberwell  Hotel,  Stanton  learned 
that  Mr.  Borlase  had  recovered  consciousness 
an  hour  earlier. 

The  doctor,  who  had  just  arrived,  presently 
came  to  meet  Stanton  in  the  sitting-room. 

"  Conscious  at  last !  "  he  reported,  in  answer 
to  Stanton's  look  of  inquiry. 

"  Yes ;  I  have  heard.  What  do  you  think 
of  him?" 

The  doctor  shook  his  head,  pursing  his  lips. 

"  No  hope?  "  asked  Stanton. 

"  There  is  never  absolute  certainty,"  replied 
the  doctor.  "  Your  father  was  a  man  of  great 
vitality.  But  he  had  had  a  severe  shock.  I 
should  say,  from  his  symptoms,  that  he  had  been 
ailing,  without  being  actively  aware  of  it,  for 
some  time.  Do  you  know  that  he  has  been  in 
any  state  of  mental  anxiety  during  the  last  few 
months?  " 

"  I  know  nothing.  I  had  not  seen  him  for 
a  year,  until  the  day  after  the  fire.  From  what 
he  told  me  then,  I  should  think  what  you  say 
very  likely." 

"  Coming  on  top  of  that,  and  of  some  physical 
degeneration  of  the  brain — perhaps  also  of  the 


292  BORLASE   &   SON 

kidneys — the  shock  of  the  fire  would  easily  ac- 
count for  a  seizure.  As  to  what  the  result  may 
be,  we  must  wait  a  little  while  to  see.  In  any 
case,  he  would  probably  never  be  anything  like 
himself  again.  He  is  very  weak  now.  I  don't 
want  to  frighten  you ;  but,  to  be  frank,  I  do  not 
think  he  will  live.  Twenty-four  hours  will  show. 
If  he  lives  so  long,  he  may  last  for  many  years. 
But  to  be  quite  candid,  I  think  he  is  dying." 

"  Had  I  better  see  him  ?  I  don't  want  to  do 
him  harm." 

"  You  can  hardly  do  that :  you  would  natu- 
rally wish  to  see  him." 

"  Yes." 

"  Besides,  he  has  asked  for  you.  You  will 
Hke  to  know  that.  The  nurse  says  that  your 
name  was  the  first  word  he  uttered." 

"  I  will  go  up,"  said  Stanton. 

"  Do,"  said  the  kindly,  short-haired  doctor, 
pressing  his  hand.  "  I'll  wait  for  you.  You  may 
have  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  you  must  go, 
and  I  will  see  him  again." 

Stanton  went  up  to  the  bedroom  with  a  soft 
step.  His  heart  was  heavy  with  a  certain  self- 
reproach.  He  knew  that  he  had  done  aright  in 
that  last  fatal  interview;  yet  it  was  not  in  his 
nature  to  spare  himself  many  pangs.  "  It  was 
for  you  as  well  as  me,"  his  guardian  had  said, 
trying  to  excuse  the  inexcusable.  Stanton 
sighed  heavily,  sore-hearted  and  perplexed,  as 
he  tapped. 

A  nurse,  in  uniform,  rose  as  he  opened  the 
door  and  stood  behind  it,  her  brown-leather  in- 


BORLASE   &   SON  293 

strument-wallet,  with  its  bright  armoury  of  for- 
ceps, pulse-glass  and  thermometer,  swinging 
from  her  girdle.  She  went  to  the  head  of  the 
bed,  holding  up  a  ringer  to  Stanton,  and 
smoothed  the  pillow. 

"  Do  you  need  anything? "  she  asked  the 
patient.  "  Here  is  your  son." 

"  Let  him  come,"  said  a  low  voice,  and  the 
nurse  motioned  to  Stanton  to  enter.  He  held 
the  door  for  her  to  go,  and  closed  it  behind  her. 

Then  he  went  to  the  bed  and  sate  on  the  chair 
beside  it.  Worn  and  shattered,  Borlase  turned 
a  head  languid  with  weakness  towards  him,  and 
withdrew  a  hand  from  the  bedclothes.  His  voice 
was  feeble  and  husky,  as  much  unlike  the  old 
voice  of  command  as  his  words  were  unlike  the 
old  words  of  censure  and  admonition.  "  My 
boy !  " 

Stanton's  eyes  filled,  and  a  sob  choked  in  his 
throat  as  he  took  the  wasted  hand. 

"  How  are  you,  sir?  "  he  asked. 

"  Call  me  father." 

"Father!" 

Stanton's  tears  flowed.  He  bent  and  kissed 
him. 

Mr.  Borlase  pressed  the  hand  he  still  kept, 
and  a  smile  passed  over  his  lips  and  left  them 
pale  and  relaxed,  a  little  contorted  even,  by  the 
sick  brain. 

"  How  do  you  feel?  "  Stanton  asked. 

Mr.  Borlase  shook  his  head. 

"  I  am  ended,"  he  said. 

"  I  hope  not,"  said  Stanton.    With  all  his  de- 


294  BORLASE   &   SON 

testation  of  the  man's  crime,  the  sense  of  blood- 
kinship  tore  at  his  heart.  Mr.  Borlase  sighed. 
"  No.  I'm  done  for,  my  son,"  he  said.  "  And 
I  deserve  it.  And  it's  better  so." 

Stanton  could  find  nothing  to  say.  But  once 
again  he  gave  the  name  he  had  been  asked  for. 
"Father!" 

"  Not  much  like  a  father,"  said  the  dying 
man,  with  a  certain  bitterness.  "  Not  like  a 
father,  Stanton.  But  I  cared  for  you,  old  fellow. 
You  must  take  things  over.  Everything  is  left 
to  you.  You  must  manage  for  yourself:  you 
must  keep  things  going." 

"  Don't  worry  about  me,  father,"  Stanton  an- 
swered gently.  "  I  shall  do." 

"  There's  money  in  the  bank,  Stanton. 
Grimes,  the  manager,  will  let  you  have  what 
you  need,  until  you  can  prove  the  will.  He 
knows  you,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  father." 

"  There  will  be  a  lot  to  do.  Are  you  in  em- 
ployment ?  " 

"  Yes ;  but  my  master  is  very  kind.  I  can 
have  all  the  time  I  need.  I  have  done  what  I 
could  for  the  girls.  You  know  everything  was 
burned.  They  ran  out  in  their  nightgowns,  and 
I  had  to  have  some  things  sent  in  for  them  be- 
fore they  could  leave  their  rooms.  That  was 
right,  wasn't  it?" 

"  Yes,  yes ;  quite  right."  The  weary  face  of 
the  draper  took  on  a  little  light.  Even  his 
sunken  eyes,  with  their  yellow,  congested  con- 
junctive, brightened  a  little.  "  You  took  your 


BORLASE   &   SON  295 

place  as  my  son,"  he  said.  "  You  knew  what  to 
do !  That's  good."  He  held  out  his  hand  again. 
"  I'm  glad  you  knew  what  to  do,  my  son.  I'm 
glad  I  lived  to  see  you  a  man." 

Stanton  was  profoundly  moved.  Perhaps, 
even  now —  And  yet !  But  the  voice  broke  in 
again  upon  his  troublous  thoughts. 

"  I  am  very  tired,"  said  Mr.  Borlase.  He 
turned  on  the  pillow,  closing  his  eyes.  "  But 
don't  go,"  he  said.  "  I  can  hear  you.  Stay  with 
me.  It  won't  be  very  long." 

"  I  hope  it  will  be  for  many  years  yet,"  Stan- 
ton  answered. 

Mr.  Borlase  again  shook  his  head.  "  No.  I 
wish  it  could,"  he  said.  "  I  would  like  to — to 
alter  some  things.  I  would  give — I'd  give — " 
His  voice  weakened,  and  still  holding  Stanton's 
hand,  he  slept. 

His  son,  broken  down  and  heart-wrung  by 
these  manifestations — so  unknown,  so  unlooked- 
for — bent  his  brow  to  the  pillow  and  sate  long 
without  conscious  thought.  Certainly  the  in- 
sufferable problems  that  must  presently  rend 
and  tear  his  understanding,  if  his  father  actually 
survived,  were  unreached,  unthought-of,  utterly 
absent  as  yet.  All  that  was  present  with  him 
was  the  softening  bewilderment  of  this  un- 
looked-for tenderness.  Never  before  had  his 
mind  taken  hold  of  the  thought  that  in  all  the 
years  since  Mrs.  Borlase,  his  foster-mother, 
died,  no  one  had  loved  him !  He  felt,  on  a  sud- 
den, very  lonely.  This  his  father,  that  had  been 
dead,  was  for  an  instant  alive  again;  had  been 
lost,  and  was  found !  It  was  more  true,  indeed, 


296  BORLASE   &    SON 

that  the  father  had  never  lived,  for  him,  until 
now,  when  the  stern,  brutal  taskmaster  of  his 
boyhood  and  youth  had  now  torn  aside  the  veil 
of  repressed  parenthood ! 

And  but  for  an  instant!  For,  in  his  heart, 
Stanton  recognised  that  his  father  was  dying. 
The  full,  stertorous  breathing  of  the  first  seiz- 
ure had  given  place  to  the  debile  inspiration  of 
utter  exhaustion.  There  was  no  life  left,  but 
the  life  that  was  slipping,  as  he  sate,  through  his 
hand. 

When  the  silent  nurse  reentered,  Stanton  was 
still  in  the  same  position. 

A  letter  from  the  sympathising  doctor  at 
breakfast-time  next  day  told  Stanton  that  his 
father  never  woke  again,  but  had  passed  away, 
without  struggle  or  pain,  in  the  night.  The 
doctor  added  that  the  esteem  and  regard  in 
which  Mr.  Borlase  had  been  held,  both  as  an 
employer  and  as  a  public  man,  could  not  be  un- 
known to  his  adopted  son,  and  must  be  a  great 
comfort  to  Stanton's  bereavement.  Neither  by 
the  doctor,  nor  by  anyone  else  in  the  Suburb, 
was  their  real  relationship  surmised. 

Stanton,  with  the  letter  before  him,  sate  long 
at  his  untasted  breakfast,  his  heart  a-chill  with 
unenvisaged  sorrow.  Everything  in  his  recent 
life  seemed,  on  a  sudden,  remote  and  irrelevant. 
The  office,  his  work  and  all  the  daily  routine 
that  he  had  been  accustomed  to  and  liked 
seemed  like  things  in  a  dream — things  with 
which  he  had  no  personal  concern.  In  a  few 
moments  he  must  rouse  himself  to  go  back  to 
them  for  a  while,  if  only  to  obtain  fresh  leave 


BORLASE   &   SON  297 

of  absence  for  the  other  duties  which  awaited 
him — the  arrangement  of  the  funeral,  the  wind- 
ing-up  of  the  estate,  the  complex,  unrealised 
duties  of  executorship.  And,  these  things  ac- 
complished, he  must  return  to  Douglas,  Wilkin- 
son &  Spender's,  he  supposed.  But  how  little 
he  seemed  to  be  concerned  with  that  life !  Yes- 
terday, as  he  worked  hard  and  late  to  keep  his 
work  in  order,  and  avoid  losing  touch  with 
things  he  had  commenced  and  did  not  wish  to 
see  lapsing,  he  seemed  to  have  an  object  in  life 
there.  His  work  interested  and  absorbed  him: 
it  was  his  life.  This  morning,  languid  and  op- 
pressed, he  could  not  bring  himself  to  care 
whether  his  work  got  confused  and  mangled  or 
not ;  some  one  else  must  attend  to  it ;  his  mind 
refused  to  go  back  to  it;  it  had  ceased,  for  the 
moment,  to  concern  him. 

Indeed,  nothing  seemed  to  matter.  It  was 
not  mere  grief  that  he  was  overwhelmed  by — 
only  torpor  and  indolence  of  spirit.  As  grief, 
the  thing  had  not  defined  itself:  the  shock  had 
been  too  great,  too  prostrating.  His  eyes  were 
fixed  before  him,  seeing  nothing  of  what  was 
there ;  his  mind  a  blank  weariness,  unconscious 
of  time  or  hunger.  Suddenly  he  roused  himself 
and  changed  his  posture  abruptly  as  he  remem- 
bered that  the  thing  he  had  been  saving  up  all 
these  weeks  to  say  to  his  guardian  would  now 
never  be  said  at  all.  His  father  was  dead,  and 
had  died  uncomforted  by  it. 

He  pushed  his  plate  aside  to  make  a  place  on 
the  table  where  he  could  rest  his  elbow,  and 
covered  his  eyes. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 

A   MAN 

SUMMER  weather  came  late  that  year  (who  ex- 
pects punctuality  of  any  season  but  the  winter?), 
and  it  was  nearly  three  months  after  his  father's 
death  that  Stanton,  with  the  Chippendales,  went 
up  the  river  for  their  first  Saturday  afternoon, 
In  Richmond  Park  the  trees  still  wore  the  fair, 
rain-washed  light-greenery  of  their  spring  dress. 
A  little  tired  with  the  brisk  pull  on  the  tide  from 
Hammersmith,  they  walked  on  the  terraces, 
looking  down  on  the  remote  steel-grey  curve 
of  the  Thames.  The  sky  was  excellently  blue, 
and  crossed  by  white  masses  of  cumulative 
cloud.  From  the  river  there  wavered  up  to 
them  a  few  thin  sounds — a  voice  raised  in  laugh- 
ter, the  rattle  of  a  pair  of  sculls  thrown  noisily 
into  a  mooring  boat.  But  for  the  most  part, 
save  for  the  twittering  of  birds,  and  here  and 
there  the  chirrup  of  a  cricket  in  the  grass,  the 
place  was  very  quiet.  Few  people  were  walking 
in  the  park,  and  Chippendale's  deep,  rather  mu- 
sical voice  was  lowered  to  the  quietude  which 
the  silence  invited. 

Stanton  had  seen  little  or  nothing  of  his 
friends  during  the  past  weeks.  Mr.  Douglas, 
to  whom  alone  he  told  his  circumstances,  had 
been  indulgent  and  generous.  Stanton  had  all 


BORLASE   &   SON  299 

the  liberty  he  needed  for  the  winding-up  of  the 
estate,  and  his  employer  gave  him  help  and  ex- 
perienced counsel  in  some  difficulties  which 
Stanton  carried  to  him.  Schneider  and  the 
clerks  treated  him  with  a  half-resentful  aloof- 
ness: he  had  not  thought  proper  to  take  them 
into  his  confidence;  well,  his  confidence  was 
not  wanted.  (The  inquisitive  Schneider  wanted 
it  very  much :  he  hated  anything  which  hap- 
pened without  his  being  told  of  it.)  Stanton 
now  did  work  which  was  not  directly  under  any- 
one's control  but  Edmund's  and  Mr.  Douglas's ; 
he  was  employed  more  and  more  on  the  tech- 
nical rather  than  the  clerical  side  of  the  business. 
The  others,  without  being  able  to  complain,  even 
to  each  other,  of  his  advancement,  somehow  felt 
that  he  had  withdrawn  from  their  fraternity. 
His  intellectual  superiority  to  themselves  they 
vaguely  felt,  vaguely  resented;  what  they  did 
not  feel,  and  indeed  had  hardly  within  them  the 
materials  for  being  appreciative  of,  was  the  fact 
that  much  of  Stanton's  advancement  was  due 
to  his  conscientiousness.  He  had  what  they 
lacked,  the  old-fashioned  Englishman's  absolute 
devotion  to  his  work.  To  do  what  he  was  paid 
for,  thoroughly,  at  no  matter  what  cost  to  him- 
self, was  become  an  instinct  with  him.  All  they 
knew  was  that  he  somehow  excelled  them :  and 
they  hated  him  for  it.  But  the  growth  of  his 
character,  which  the  responsibilities  of  executor- 
ship  had  a  great  influence  in  consolidating  and 
completing,  gave  him  an  independent  spirit, 
which  earned  appreciation  and  respect.  He  had 


300  BORLASE   &   SON 

lived;  he  had  felt  in  his  soul  the  imminent  mo- 
mentousness  of  existence  and  had  looked  on  the 
face  of  the  dead.  He  was  in  all  senses  a  man, 
full  grown,  relying  upon  himself  and  on  his  own 
capacity,  needing  countenance  and  support  from 
that  capacity  alone,  and  firm  and  self-reliant  in 
all  he  did.  He  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  an 
important  member  of  the  staff,  and  no  one  ven- 
tured any  longer  to  criticise  him. 

There  was  much  to  be  done  at  South  Camber- 
well — accounts  to  be  examined  and  paid,  people 
to  be  seen  and  looked  after.  Stanton's  evenings 
were  fully  occupied,  and  he  had  very  little  time 
to  spend  with  the  Chippendales,  still,  except  for 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wicksted,  his  only  friends. 

Wicksted,  by  what  appeared  to  him  great 
good  fortune,  found  speedy  employment  in  one 
of  the  wholesale  houses  that  Mr.  Borlase  had 
done  business  with.  His  services  had  been  em- 
ployed by  Stanton  in  the  closing  up  of  the  ac- 
counts— at  a  salary,  be  it  said,  considerably  in 
excess  of  what  he  had  received  from  the  shop. 
On  the  basis  of  this  salary  the  wholesale  house 
"  took  him  over,"  hardly  able  to  believe  in  his 
own  good  luck.  He  left  the  Southern  Suburb 
for  a  semi-detached  house  of  eight  small  rooms 
near  Lordship  Lane,  erected  in  the  worst  taste 
of  a  local  builder,  and  intimate  with  the  domestic 
sounds  of  its  abutting  neighbour. 

By  degrees,  in  South  Cambervvell,  we  recon- 
ciled ourselves  to  the  permanent  disappearance 
of  our  favourite  shop.  Not  a  vestige  of  it  re- 
mained. The  glory  of  the  departed  Borlase  van- 


BORLASE   &   SON  301 

ished  with  it.  Even  the  testimonial,  which  had 
hung,  gilt-framed,  on  the  wall  of  the  draper's 
drawing-room  bearing  witness  to  "  your  Pri- 
vate Virtues  and  Illustrious  Public  Services," 
as  appreciated  by  "  the  Ratepayers  of  this  Par- 
ish," had  perished  in  the  flames.  So  had  Mr. 
Borlase's  portrait  (in  oils)  referred  to  in  that 
illuminated  document.  Mr.  Borlase's  places  as 
Churchwarden,  as  Vestryman  and  as  Guardian 
of  the  Poor  were  filled  up,  and  (so  short  is  public 
memory)  he  was,  in  a  few  months  forgotten, 
save  by  a  few  of  his  older  fellow-officials,  who 
wagged  their  heads  over  the  more  outrageous 
innovations  of  a  democratising  County  Council, 
and  opined  that  "  Borlase  wouldn't  have  stood 
this  kind  of  thing."  But  they,  the  living,  were 
as  powerless  as  Borlase,  the  dead,  to  stem  the 
current. 

This  afternoon  at  Richmond  gave  Stanton  his 
first  hours  with  the  Chippendales.  He  had  told 
Mary,  in  the  office,  more  than  he  had  told  any 
of  the  other  clerks — that  his  father,  from  whom 
he  had  been  separated  for  a  long  time,  had  sud- 
denly died,  and  that  he,  Stanton,  had  had  the 
estate  to  administer. 

She  knew  of  the  fire — Peters's  account  of  it 
and  of  Stanton's  strange  behaviour,  had,  some- 
how, percolated  to  her,  without  being  very 
clearly  understood.  He  spoke  of  it  now. 

"  You  know  I  have  a  story  to  tell  you  two," 
he  said,  as  they  sate  at  last  on  a  bench  overlook- 
ing the  stream.  "  There  have  been  so  many 
things  to  do  that  I  haven't  had  the  chance  be- 


302  BORLASE   &   SON 

fore,  and  that  is  why,  partly,  I  got  you  to  come 
up  the  river  to-day.  It's  a  pretty  long  story; 
but  I  feel  as  if  I'd  been  rather  mysterious ;  and, 
anyway,  you're  my  friends — my  only  friends  al- 
most— and  I  feel  as  though  you  had  a  right  to 
know  things." 

"  That's  all  right,  old  man,"  said  Chippendale. 
"  We  know  you've  been  busy,  and  we  didn't 
worry  you  to  come  and  see  us  so  long  as  you 
had  work  to  call  you." 

"  Well,  it  isn't  just  that,"  said  Stanton.  "  I'm 
not  apologising  for  staying  away,  because  I 
knew  you'd  both  understand.  What  I  want  you 
to  know  is  all  about  me.  I've  kept  my  own 
counsel  since  I've  known  you  because  I  had  to. 
I'd  given  my  word.  But  now  that  I'm  a  free 
agent,  I  want  to  be  candid.  You  remember 
that  I  came  to  Douglas's  from  a  shop  in  South 
Camberwell — Borlase's?  " 

Mary  nodded. 

"  Well,  we've  often  talked  about  that  shop 
and  its  ways.  I  didn't  like  them  when  I  was  in 
it.  I  have  hated  them  since  I  have  known  you 
two." 

"Why  since?"  asked  Chippendale,  packing 
tobacco  hard  into  a  large  pipe. 

"  You've  shown  me  the  hatefulness  and  in- 
iquity of  it.  Well,  that  shop  belonged  to  my 
father,  Mr.  Borlase.  I  didn't  know  that  he  was 
my  father  until  just  before  he  died.  When  I  left 
school  he  took  me  into  the  shop  for  a  little  while, 
but  eventually  he  gave  me  twenty  pounds,  and 
told  me  to  go  and  try  if  I  could  make  my  own 


BORLASE   &   SON  303 

way  in  the  world  for  a  year.  He  said  I  needed 
to  do  that — that  I  must  make  a  man  of  myself." 

"  He  had  wisdom,  your  father,"  Chippendale 
commented. 

"  Yes.  I  see  it  now.  But  it  seemed  hard 
then.  I  had  always  been  told  I  was  an  adopted 
child.  I  am — "  Stanton  hesitated.  "  Mrs.  Bor- 
lase  wasn't  my  mother,"  he  said,  looking  before 
him  into  the  trees  for  a  moment  before  he 
turned  his  eyes  to  Mary's  face. 

"  I  didn't  know  anything  when  I  left  the 
shop,"  he  went  on.  "  I  hardly  realised  that  it 
was  a  shop  kept  on  wrong  principles.  I  wasn't 
a  man.  Going  out  to  shift  for  myself  did,  in  a 
way,  make  a  man  of  me — that  and  your  friend- 
ship, you  two."  His  voice  broke  a  little,  and 
he  looked  from  one  to  another. 

"  It's  a  disagreeable  story,  you  see,"  he  con- 
tinued. "  I  was  brought  up  on  money  that 
wasn't  made  in  a  way  that  I  can  approve  of.  I 
am,  in  a  way,  indebted  to  it ;  but  it  hurts  me  to 
think  that  I,  in  a  way,  had  your  friendship  on 
false  pretences.  You  hate  the  shop  and  its 
ways:  and  I  had  lived  on  the  profits  of  those 
ways." 

"Oh,  nonsense!"  said  Chippendale.  "It 
wasn't  your  fault." 

"  We  liked  you  for  yourself,"  Mary  added. 
'  The  shop  doesn't  make  any  difference.  I  can 
understand  you  not  caring  to  talk " 

"  No,  it  wasn't  that,"  said  Stanton.  "  I  would 
have  told  you,  but  my  father  made  it  a  condition 
that  I  wasn't  to  use  his  name,  and  I  considered 
that  as  a  pledge." 


304  BORLASE   &   SON 

"  Quite  right,"  Chippendale  nodded. 

"  Wait  a  moment,"  Mary  interposed.  "  Mr. 
Borlase  treated  you  as  an  adopted  son.  But  he 
was  kind  to  you — you  were  fond  of  him,  weren't 
you?" 

Stanton  hesitated.  "  Mrs.  Borlase — she  died 
when  I  was  at  school — was  very,  very  kind  to 
me,"  he  said.  "  She  was  the  only  person  who 
ever  seemed  to  care  for  me.  My  father  was  very 
stern  to  everyone.  He  wouldn't  let  me  be  fond 
of  him.  And  yet " 

"  And  yet?  "  Mary  helped  him. 

"  And  yet  he  was  fond  of  me,"  Stanton  an- 
swered. "  At  the  last  he  showed  it.  Only  at  the 
last!  When  he  put  me  to  the  door,  last  year, 
it  was  in  kindness,  and  when  I  saw  him  again, 
just  before  his  death,  he  was  very  kind  and 
fatherly." 

He  stopped,  and  sate  for  some  minutes  in 
thought.  "  And  he  never  knew !  "  he  exclaimed 
at  last,  rather  bitterly. 

"  Never  knew  what?  "  Mary  asked. 

"  Never  knew  that  I  had  come  to — to 

"  To  love  him,"  she  said  softly. 

"  Yes,  in  a  way,  to  love  him — though,  in  a 
way,  it  was  I  who  killed  him !  " 

"  You  killed  him !  "  Chippendale  exclaimed. 

"  No,  no;  this  is  morbid,"  Mary  said.  "  He's 
reproaching  himself  for  some  idea,  Will." 

"  No,  I'm  not,"  Stanton  replied  firmly.  "  I 
don't  reproach  myself.  I  did  right.  I  had  to 
do  what  I  did.  I  should  be  a  sentimental  fool 
if  I  reproached  myself." 


BORLASE   &   SON  305 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  said  Chippendale, 
to  whom  all  this  appeared,  as  Mary  had  called 
it,  morbid  and  self-conscious. 

"  It  isn't  very  easy  to  explain.  My  father  is 
dead,  and  he  did  what  he  did  for  me,"  Stanton 
said.  "  He  wasn't  a  good  man,  but  he  cared 
for  me,  and  I  hate  myself,  in  a  way,  when  I 
think  of  that.  Yet  it  wasn't  my  fault.  My  father 
had  got  into  difficulties.  He  burned  the  shop 
down  for  the  sake  of  the  insurance;  and  there 
were  girls  in  it  who  were  killed.  I  was  at  the 
fire,  and  I  saved  some  of  the  books.  I  didn't 
know  until  afterwards  that  all  the  girls  were  not 
out." 

"  Yes,  yes.  I  heard  of  that.  You  risked  your 
life,"  Mary  said. 

"  Yes,  it  seems  I  did,  though  I  didn't  think 
there  was  any  danger,"  Stanton  replied.  "  The 
firemen  were  inside.  But  you  see,  just  those 
books  would  have  shown  the  true  value  of  the 
goods  that  were  burned.  They  were  over- 
insured.  I  went  to  my  father — I  didn't  know 
he  was  my  father  then — next  day,  and  told  him 
what  I  had  done.  He  cursed  me  for  it !  He  told 
me  I  had  ruined  him,  that  he  had  set  the  place 
on  fire  himself,  on  purpose  to  burn  those  books 
along  with  the  stock.  I  told  him  that  he  had 
killed  two  girls — called  him  a  murderer.  I  said 
I  would  denounce  him.  Then  he  told  me. 
'  You  are  my  son,'  he  said,  and  fell  down  in  a 
fit,  from  which  he  never  recovered.  I  only  saw 
him  once  afterwards,  just  before  he  died.  He 
forgave  me.  He  had  never  spoken  to  me  as  he 

20 


306  BORLASE   &   SON 

spoke  then — I  felt  like  a  murderer,  myself,  for 
a  moment.  Yet  what  else  could  I  have  done?  " 

"  You  couldn't  have  done  anything  else,"  said 
Mary  gently.  "  You  played  the  man.  You  did 
right.  You  haven't  anything  to  reproach  your- 
self with." 

"  Yes,  you  were  right,"  said  Chippendale. 

"  Then,  of  course,"  said  Stanton,  "  there  was 
everything  to  wind-up.  The  money  in  the  bank 
just  about  paid  the  trade  debts.  The  stocks  and 
shares  that  he  had  open  had  to  be  sold  to  liqui- 
date the  stockbroker's  account;  and  they  pro- 
duced nothing.  Of  course  I  couldn't  claim  the 
insurance." 

"  Did  they  know  it  was  an  incendiary  fire?  " 
asked  Chippendale. 

"No;  no  one  ever  knew.  I  simply  didn't 
claim  the  insurance  from  the  companies.  I 
didn't  go  near  them.  You  can  see  I  couldn't 
take  the  money;  and  as  there  was  just  about 
enough,  with  a  little  I  had  saved,  to  pay  the 
creditors,  there  was  no  one  who  could  ask  any 
questions." 

Chippendale  nodded  gravely. 

"  You  see,  as  I  said,  it  isn't  a  pleasant  story," 
Stanton  concluded. 

"  Not  altogether,"  said  Mary ;  "  but  there  is 
nothing  in  it  that  you  have  to  be  ashamed  of." 

The  three  sate  silent  for  some  minutes.  Pres- 
ently Chippendale,  who  never  remained  still 
long  without  difficulty  and  a  sensation  as  of 
cramp  in  the  legs,  stretched  those  members 
warningly  and  got  up.  The  others  did  not 


BORLASE   &   SON  307 

move.  The  sculptor  strolled  away  down  the 
slope  and  left  them,  still  silent. 

At  last  they  turned  to  each  other,  and  Stan- 
ton  looked  into  his  companion's  face.  His  feel- 
ing for  her  was  a  lad's  admiring  reverence  for 
the  first  woman,  older  than  himself,  whom  he 
had  known  at  all  intimately  since  boyhood. 
Something  in  his  grey  eyes,  as  they  met  her 
brown  ones,  made  her  sigh,  and  she  rose,  look- 
ing towards  her  brother. 

"  You  decided  not  to  change  your  name 
again,  then?"  she  said,  gently. 

"  No,"  he  replied.  "  I  shall  go  on  calling 
myself  Stanton.  It's  the  only  name,  after  all, 
that  I  have  a  right  to — my  mother's.  It's  the 
only  name  I  could  offer  to  a  woman,  if  I  should 
ever  ask  a  woman  to  share  it." 

"  Yes,  and  it's  the  name  in  which  you  have 
made  a  man  of  yourself,"  she  replied. 

They  walked  to  join  Chippendale. 

A  steep  place,  a  little  way  down,  near  the  ter- 
race of  the  Star  and  Garter,  caused  her  to 
stumble.  Stanton  held  out  a  hand  to  steady  her, 
and  she  put  her  own  hand  into  it,  leaning  for 
a  moment  upon  him.  She  sighed  again  as  their 
eyes  met,  his  with  so  much  worship  in  them — 
hers  with  a  certain  sadness,  because  of  what  she 
saw  there. 

THE    END 


THE  MS.  IN  A  RED  BOX 

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